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LORELEI: 

A Tale of the Hudson 







LORELEI 


OTHER STORIES 


MARY JfSAFFORD 



:.J2 




3 Ci t ^ 

ST. PAUL 

The Price-McGill Company 

360-362 SIBLEY STREET 




COPyiUGUTED 1892 

BY 

THE PRICE-McGILL CO. 


PBINTED AND PLATED BY 

THE PRICE-McGILE COMPANY 

6T. PAXTXi, inNN. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAP. PAGE. 

Lorelei, ----------- - 9 

The Golden Fleece, -57 

Caught by a Cyclone, - -- -- -- - gi 

An Idea in Decorative Art, 101 

Tea Roses, 119 

Hiring a Dory, ----------- 163 

Kate’s Cameos, - -- -- -- -- - 1S3 

The Last of Their Line, 


205 














PREFACE. 


For permission to publish the stories contained in this 
volume the author’s thanks are due to the editors and pub- 
lishers of the various periodicals in which they originally 
appeared. “An Idea in Decorative Art” was first printed 
in Harper’s Bazar; The Home Journal published “Lorelei” 
and “Tea Roses”; the remaining tales will be recognized 
by readers of The Epoch, Our Continent, and other 
New York and Philadelphia magazines. 

MARY J. SAFFORD. 

Washington, June 15 , 1892 . 








LORELEI 

A Tale of the Hudson. 


I. 

“Really, Van Brunt, my courage, like Bob Acres’, 

is beginning to ooze out at the tips of my fingers at 

the thought of presenting myself before a stranger 

at this time of night. Old World experiences can’t 

be transferred to this country, and I fear the plan of 

boating excursions on the Hudson instead of the 

Rhine will prove a disastrous failure. Seriously, my 

dear fellow, isn’t there some hotel where we can stay 

till morning and reach your aunt’s country-house at 

a more seasonable hour? ” 

“Nonsense, Rex, it still lacks ten minutes of twelve; 

beyond that rock the river widens into a bay, and 

Ilawksnest is perched on a low crag not half a mile 

from this very spot. Besides, our baggage was 

delivered there this evening, and if we don’t appear 

to-night Mrs. Tresham will imagine all sorts of 
11 


12 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


disasters, perhaps send out to have the water 
dragged before dawn. No, no, pull with a will and 
we’ll reach Hawksnest before the witching hour 
‘when graves do yawn.’” 

A moment’s silence followed, during which the 
young men bent sturdily to their oars. Both were 
above the usual height, but there all resemblance 
ceased. Van Brunt inherited from his Dutch ances- 
try his broad shoulders, ruddy complexion, fair hair 
and singularly clear, bright blue eyes, together with 
a goodly portion of the lymphatic temperament of 
the old Mynheers, who stolidly smoked their pipes in 
the angry face of William the Testy. Rex Daland, 
on the contrary, was of the true Southern type, lithe, 
slender, with a dusky skin and deep, dark eyes whose 
fire had descended to aProven9al grand-mother from 
ancestors on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. He 
was an artist to the finger tips, ardent, enthusiastic, 
prone to the most sudden changes of mood, and the 
very contrast between the two young men had 
cemented the ties of a close friendship, when two 
years before they had met in Europe on the deck of a 
steamer bound from Nice to Naples. Attracted by 
some occult sympathy, they continued their wander- 
ings together, strolled over the desolate Campagna, 
watched the effect of sunlight and shadow on gray- 
green olive groves and slender Campaniles, then 
traveling northward floated over Venetian lagunes, 


■LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


13 


and finally, at a sudden fancy of Rex, purchased a 
boat and rowed for miles up the Rhine, pausing ever 
and anon to let the young artist enrich his sketch- 
book with some moss-grown ruin or castle-crowned 
height. Van Brunt had shaped his course of travel 
wholly to suit Rex, for he was one of the world’s 
loiterers, while the young artist still had his fortune 
to win. After eighteen months of pleasant inter- 
course, the sudden death of Arthur Van Brunt’s 
father summoned him home to attend to the settle- 
ment of the estate. Rex lingered a short time longer 
in Rome, and on his arrival in New York was greeted 
by his friend with a brother’s warm affection. The 
young artist’s studio soon became a favorite resort, 
and he found himself on the high road to fame and 
fortune. Mrs. Tresham,Van Brunt’s aunt, had an 
insatiable mania for lions, and in this capacity, 
though ostensibly to please Arthur, invited Rex to 
spend a few days at her country seat. 

“By the way, Rex,’’ said Van Brunt, breaking the 
silence, “how comes on the wonderful picture that is 
to take the world by storm, and which you’ll never, 
by any chance, let me see ? ’’ 

“Because I don’t want to have it lose any of its 
effect by showing it to you unfinished. .I’m going to 
use you as a barometer to test the dear public. If it 
stirs your slow blood, old fellow, I shall be sure of 
success— that is,” he cried, with an impatient toss of 


14 


LOBELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


his head, “if I can ever get mj idea on the canvas. 
So far I’ve tried in vain to find a model that even 
gives me the shadow of the vision hovering before 
me. Pshaw, there are just two types in New York; 
round-faced, stolid German blondes and black-haired, 
dark-eyed Italians, who look as if they were always 
posing for a Judith, Cassandra, or something of the 
sort. The landscape is finished, and a lovely one it 
is. You remember that bit of the Rhine I sketched 
below Drachenfels? But when I try to paint the 
Lorelei” — he paused a moment, and then, in a quieter 
tone, continued: • 

“You see, it is not only exquisite beauty of feature 
I must have, but a tender, loving, yet regretful 
expression in the eyes. It was Lorelei’s fate to lure 
the unhappy mortals to their doom, yet she pitied 
them, mourned for them. I don’t believe she exulted 
over the poor devils. Van Brunt,” — with a sudden 
change of manner — “you’d never believe how hard it 
is to find a real blonde. Not a white-faced girl with 
flaxen hair, but the exquisite pearly skin and ‘locks 
that glitter like gold.’ Of course I expect my imagi- 
nation to help me, but,” with a rueful look that 
made Van Brunt burst into a hearty laugh, “it does 
seem queer that there are so few pretty women now- 
a-days.” 

“A sad thing, Rex. Nature ought to have been 
more considerate to you young artists. But my 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


15 


[ cousin Eve is a blonde and a beauty, perhaps she 
will give you a few sittings next winter.” 

Rex shrugged his shoulders with a look of ineffable 
disgust. 

“A fashionable young lady ! Golden hair colored 
by Coudray’s powder, and complexion carefully 
painted to the right tint of lilies and roses. No, 
thank you. No disrespect to your cousin, whom 
I’ve never seen, but” — in a half- vexed tone — ‘‘the 
very idea of your suggesting her shows how utterly 
I’ve failed to give you any conception of my 
Lorelei.” 

Van Brunt laughingl^’^ shook his head. “I know 
little enough of art matters, Rex, to be sure, 
but—” 

A sudden exclamation from his companion stopped 
him, and glancing over his shoulder he beheld a 
scene destined to haunt his memory forever. 

The boat had passed the rock of which he had just 
spoken and was now floating in its shadow. 
Beyond, the river, here spreading into a bay flooded 
by the moonlight, stretched like a sheet of molten 
silver, while on a rocky bank that loomed up like a 
cliff in contrast with the depth of shadow below, 
leaned a white-robed girlish figure, clinging with one 
hand to the slender bough of an ash tree growing on 
the extreme verge of the rock, while the other shaded 
her eyes. An airy dress floated around her, and 


16 


LORELEI AMD OTHER STORIES. 


masses of magnificent golden hair fell like a vail far 
lielow her waist. 

Rex slowly turned his head and faced his friend. 
Van Brunt started. Every drop of blood had left 
the young artist’s cheeks and lips, while the dark 
eyes glowed and sparkled with a look he had never 
seen in them before — love, longing, and withal a 
superstitious fear that made the rich, clear voice 
husky, as bending toward his companion he mur- 
mured: “Lorelei!” 

For an instant even Van Brunt’s calm, self-con- 
trolled nature yielded to the influence of the scene 
and his companion’s strange emotion; a sudden chill 
ran through his veins like ice, then in a sharper tone 
than he would have used had he not been vexed with 
himself for his momentary subjection to the power of 
fancy, he exclaimed: 

“Nonsense, Rex! Are you crazy? That’s my 
cousin. Eve Tresham. Confounded littlecoquette,” he 
muttered under his breath, “if I hadn’t supposed her 
safe at Newport for the next fortnight, nothing eould 
have induced me to bringthis susceptible fellow here. 
No doubt she has heard of the pieture, as it’s town- 
talk, and thinks it would be charming to have her 
portrait taken in so romantic a fashion. I dare say 
she has been posing there for half an hour, and'Rex 
of course will always see her under the glamor of 
this first appearance. Her magnificent hair over 


Lorelei; a tale of the Hudson. 


17 


her shoulders, too! I never saw her wear it so 
before, but it’s the proper style of eoiffure for 
Lorelei.” He almost groaned aloud in his vexation, 
then shouted in anything but an amiable tone: 

“Eve, do you want to eateh your death, out in the 
damp with nothing over your head?. There,” he 
murmured, with a smile of satisfaetion, “there’s a 
bit of plain prose to off-set your poetic appearance, 
my lady.” 

“Oh, Arthur, is it really you at last? ” replied the 
sweetest of voices. “I’m so glad. Your note said 
we were to expect you at half-past nine, and mamma 
has been nearly frantic, imagining that j^ou had been 
run down by some steamer or met with every other 
disaster a lively imagination can conjure up. I’ll 
rush to the house, relieve her mind, and send Peter 
down to fasten the boat; he’ll be at the landing by 
the time you get there.” 

She vanished before the last words were spoken, 
and tbe boat, under Van Brunt’s guidance, shot 
swiftly over the moonlit water toward the little 
wharf, now looming dimly out of the shadow. Ere 
they reached it a man came running down a path on 
the hill-side and stood ready to take charge of the 
skiff. 

The two young men sprang lightly ashore, and 
Van Brunt, passing his arm through that of his com- 
panion, plunged with the confidence of one to 


18 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


whom every step of the way was familiar, into a 
grove of pine trees, whose dense foliage scarcely per- 
mitted a ray of light to enter. The soft carpet of 
pine needles muffled the sound of their footsteps. 
Neither spoke during the few moments in which Van 
Brunt, guiding his friend, pressed forward through 
the darkness with firm, unwavering tread. The 
young artist was still under the impression of the 
scene he had just witnessed. Van Brunt was also 
conscious of it and too much annoyed for speech lest 
he should give vent to his vexation in words, and 
thereby doubtless only deepen the effect he desired to 
remove. Suddenly they emerged from the shadow of 
the pines on a smoothly shaven lawn, dotted with 
majestic elms and rising in a gentle ascent to a fine 
old mansion, its spacious verandas festooned with 
a luxuriant growth of vines. 

Here a flood of yellow candle-light, streaming- 
through French windows, mingled with the pure, 
cold lustre of the moon-rays, and revealed Mrs. 
Tresham’s portly figure hastening toward them, 
while she poured forth a torrent of exclamations of 
relief at their arrival, mingled with a somewhat 
incoherent description of the terrors she had experi- 
enced at thought of possible mishaps. Neither of the 
two young men found an opportunity amid the flood 
of talk to answer, and Mrs. Tresham continued to 
dilate upon the subject with unimpaired volubility 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


19 


until they reached the steps of the veranda, down 
which she had rushed to welcome them, when she 
suddenly changed the conversation, or rather mono- 
logue, by exclaiming: 

“Just think, Arthur, Eve’s trunks were packed for 
Newport when your letter eame, and she insisted 
that she wouldn’t go until your visit was over; she 
had scarcely seen you since you were children 
together, and this might be the last opportunity. I 
must confess I was vexed ; of course there is always 
plenty of time for cousins to meet, and was afraid 
Mr. McMichael— ” 

Here she suddenly paused and turned with some 
polite inquiry to the young artist. Fortunately the 
shadow of the pillar beneath which he was standing 
concealed the expression of annoyance on Van 
Brunt’s face, though even Mrs. Tresham’s ears, dull 
as they commonly were to delicate shades of mean- 
ing, would readily have detected the undisguised sar- 
casm in his “I really had no idea Eve was so fond of 
me,” had she not been listening to Rex’s reply. 

“Of course not, you dear old bear, you never give 
Eve credit for anything good,” said a sweet voice in 
a tone of such perfect good-nature that Van Brunt’s 
kind heart involuntarily reproached him for having 
perhaps misjudged the beautiful girl, who, slipping a 
little white hand into his arm and making him linger 
behind the other couple, whispered eagerly: “Tell 


20 


lorelp:! and other stories. 


me, Arthur, did I look like a perfect tool with my 
hair hanging over my shoulders a la Lucia di Lam- 
mermoor, or some other operatic lunatic in white 
muslin and disheveled locks? I only hope your friend 
didn’t see me. It was all mamma’s fault. She had 
been worr^dng over your non-arrival and conjuring 
up all sorts of accidents till I was fairly worn out 
and said I was going to bed. Of course you had only 
found the row longer. than you expected and stopped 
at some hotel for the night. She shook her head and 
told me I never took anything to heart. She had a 
presentiment that something had happened, and her 
presentiments never deceived her; she had had pre- 
cisely the same feeling three nights ago, when poor 
Will Murray was drowned. I’m afraid I was irrev- 
erent enough to say ‘nonsense,’ and went up stairs 
in rather a bad humor. But, I don’t know how it 
was, after I had taken my hair down, I stood at the 
window looking out, and everything was so deadly 
still, and the moonlight seemed so ghostly, I began 
to think of poor Will Murray — you know it was sup- 
posed he rowed too near a steamer and the skiff was 
upset by the waves — until, until,” she shivered and 
lowered her voice, “IrealW fancied I could see yon 
floating on the water with j’-our face upturned in the 
pale light, and though you ‘had no idea Eve was so 
fond of me’” — with sueh perfect mimicry of tlie cold 
sarcasm of his tone that Van Brunt flushed scarlet — 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


21 


“I yielded to a sudden impulse and rushed down to 
the river, only to make myself ridiculous in your eyes. 
Yet after all, Arthur, we are sisters’ children, and 
perhaps it is just possible I am not so utterly heart- 
less as you choose to think me. Suppose you give 
me the benefit of the doubt — will you ? ” 

She had paused on the edge of the shadow cast by 
the last pillar ere they reached the flood of light 
streaming from the window of the dining-room, her 
little hand trembled on his arm, and Van Brunt 
fancied that the blue eyes raised to his were glitter- 
ing with tears. 

Even his slow blood stirred strangely. Was there 
a spell in those blue eyes ? Arrant coquette as he 
believed her to be, a torrent of self-reproach filled his 
heart. Poor little Eve ! Perhaps, after all, he had 
misjudged her. There are always so many tongues 
ready to charge a beautiful girl with the sin of flirt- 
ing. No wonder she had grown nervous. They were 
very late. Very likely she had never heard of the 
Lorelei! Surely it was far more natural to suppose 
that, seized with a sudden fright born of the nervous- 
ness to which all women are prone, she had rushed 
down to the cliff, than to imagine the petted belle 
and beauty would take so much trouble to dress and 
pose for a penniless artist. Why, she did not even 
know when they were coming; they were already 
two hours behind the appointed time, and she cer- 


22 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


tainly would not have attitudinized on the cliff 
indefinitely. 

What folly on his part to fancy such a thing ! His 
aunt’s allusion to the millionaire, McMichael, too — 
very likely she was engaged to him. These thoughts 
flashed through his mind in the instant Eve’s wet 
eyes were raised to his, and stooping suddenly he 
warmly pressed his lips to the little hand lying white 
as a snowflake on his arm and murmured in tones 
whose fervor certainly passed the bounds of cousinly 
affection : 

“Will I? With all my heart. Eve. Or rather I’ll 
never doubt you again.” 

Perhaps, spite of the sincere, earnest ring of the 
tones, the promise would have been broken ere its 
echoes died on the air could he have seen the light of 
triumph that leaped into the eyes so lately dewy 
with tears. But, possibly conscious of the change of 
expression, while powerless to control it. Eve had at 
the same instant, releasing his arm, moved forward, 
drawing aside the lace curtains of the window, 
through which her mother and Rex had just disap- 
peared. 

Arthur followed and, lingering at the casement, 
watched the introduction, angrily noting the look of 
eager admiration in Rex’s dark eyes. Yet what 
artist could have failed to admire Eve’s exquisite 
face, whose classic perfection rivaled the statues of 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


23 


Greek goddesses, while no marble could ever com- 
pete with the matchless purity of her complexion? 
Masses of golden hair, glittering in the candle-light 
with a metallic lustre, were carelessly gathered in a 
knot at the back of the graceful head, and the slight 
figure was simply attired in a white muslin dress. 
Miss Tresham’s only ornaments were peculiar. A 
gold serpent twined amid the lace at her throat, and 
snakes, their scales wrought in gold with the utmost 
skill of the jeweler’s art, wound up each arm, confin- 
ing the loose muslin sleeves. 

The little party assembled around a table gleaming 
with glass and silver, and Eve’s bright wit and 
ready repartee completed the spell her beauty had 
already woven over the susceptible young artist. 
He had dreaded to see Miss Tresham, fearing that 
some commonplace pretty blonde would destroy the 
vision born of the moonlight, and the ideal Lorelei 
so long sought again vanish into mist-land. Now 
he sat watching every change of the perfect face, 
trying to fix its exquisite contours on his memory. 

When they rose from table and passed out on the 
wide piazza to admire the beautiful view of the 
Hudson, Mrs. Tresham laid her hand on her nephew’s 
arm and whispered : 

“It is to be a secret till autumn; Eve will have it 
so, and I can’t cross the dear child, but I may surely 
tell you, she is engaged to Mr. AIcMichael, of San 


24 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Francisco. The very best match in the country ! 
He’s perfectly infatuated, offers to settle half his 
fortune on her, and she — well. Eve could never be 
happy without money, and I think she likes him as 
well as an^^body. You know,” and a shade of sad- 
ness dimmed the maternal pride beaming in her face, 
“3'ou know Eve was never demonstrative from a 
little child, not even to me.” 

A faint sigh closed the sentence that had com- 
menced so exultantly, then an anxious look flitted 
over Mrs. Tresham’s face and she added breathlessly: 

“You won’t tell any one, Arthur? Eve would be 
so angry if it should get public.” 

“I dare say, spoil her breaking the hearts of a 
few more poor fellows,” muttered Van Brunt sav- 
agely under his breath, all his old suspicions return- 
ing with two-fold violence, “but Rex shan’t be one 
if I can save him.” Then he answered gravely: 

“I’ll say nothing, aunt, except to one person — my 
friend Rex. He seems very much fascinated by Eve 
already, and he’s such a susceptible fellow it might 
not be safe for him to spend a week under the same 
roof if not forewarned. He’ll keep the secret as 
faithfully as I, never fear.” 

Mrs. Tresham tried to expostulate, but in vain, 
and at last yielded. 

The young men went up to their rooms, air}’’, 
spacious chambers, whose windows afforded glimpses 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


25 


of the wide, blue river shimmering in the moonlight. 
Rex stood in silence, gazing out into the night, 
apparently at the majestic Hudson, but his eyes saw 
only a fair face framed in a cloud of red golden 
hair. 

“By the way, Rex,” said Arthur in the most non- 
chalant tone he could assume, for he was by no 
means a good actor, “my aunt has just told me a 
bit of family news. Eve is engaged to Mr. 
McMichael, the California millionaire; a capital 
match. He’ll gratify her luxurious tastes to the 
utmost. It’s to be kept a secret till autumn in order 
not to interfere with her delightful game of flirting, 
I suppose, but of course you’ll say nothing, old fel- 
low?” 

Dead silence. Arthur turned toward his friend. 
“You’ll say nothing? ” he repeated after a pause. 

“No, no,” answered Rex, rousing himself, and Van 
Brunt never guessed that his words of warning had 
fallen on deaf ears, that Rex, absorbed in pondering 
how he could best induce Miss Tresham to give him 
a sitting next day for the Lorelei, had made only a 
mechanical reply to his question. Already the remem- 
I)ered music of the siren’s tones were making the 
friend’s familiar accents sound faint and meaningless. 
Is there, indeed, reality in the Turk’s “Kismet?” 
There are times in this world of ours when it 


seems so. 


26 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Golden days for the young artist followed. Ram- 
bles through the woods, where the sunlight, glinting 
athwart the masses of foliage, lent new lustre to 
Eve’s shining hair, rows on the Hudson, during 
which Rex could gaze his fill at the perfect face ideal- 
ized by the moonlight, rides along lonely, grass- 
grown lanes, where the hoofs of their horses fell with 
a muffled sound and Eve looked fairer than ever in 
her close-fitting riding habit. Tennyson’s lines: 

“As she fled fast through sun and shade, 

The happy winds upon her played, 

Blowing the ringlet from the braid ; 

She looked so lovely, as she swayed 
The rein with dainty finger-tips, 

“A man had given all other bliss, 

And all his worldly worth for this, 

To waste his whole heart in one kiss 
Upon her perfect lips.” 

were constantly flitting through Rex’s mind. Once 
he unconsciously uttered them aloud. They were 
alone, for Arthur, trusting to the safe-guard he had 
given his friend by the disclosure of Eve’s secret, now 
felt at ease, and with the indolence natural to his 
temperament, let matters take their course, believ- 
ing Rex’s admiration to be only the out-growth of 
his beauty-loving nature. 

Eve raised her long lashes with a swift, sudden 
glance. 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


27 


“Quoting Tennyson, Mr. Daland? Those ideas 
were all very well in ye olden days of chivalry, but 
what man in our practical age could be found even 
to peril, far less lose worldly worth for so trivial a 
thing as a kiss from the woman he loved ? No, no, 
wealth is the one thing needful in this nineteenth 
century. Everj’^body will tell you so; it’s the religion 
of our times.” She spoke with a ring of bitterness 
and impatience he had never heard in the sweet, 
musical tones. 

“You are saying what you cannot mean. Miss 
Tresh am,” cried Rex impetuously. “Peril worldly 
wealth ! I would give my life and count it nothing 
for the dear sake of the woman I loved. Only 
try me.” 

His voice sank to the lowest whisper, his dark eyes 
glowed with a passionate light. Suddenly stretching 
out his hand, he seized her rein. 

“Eve—” 

Just the faintest tinge of color crimsoned Miss 
Tresham’s cheek; for one moment her eyes, soft, 
dewy, glittering with a light no man had ever seen in 
them before, were raised to his. Could it be that the 
impetuous young artist, so unlike the men she had 
hitherto met, had really found and touched her heart, 
a commodity which many persons doubted whether 
the beautiful Miss Tresham possessed? Alas! the 
expression was but for an instant, an instant so 


28 


LORELEI AKD OTHER STORIES. 


fleeting that Rex almost doubted whether the look 
which had flooded his very soul with sunlight had 
not been merely an illusion of his over-excited imag- 
ination, then a shadow darkened the lovelv face, the 
sweet lips curled haughtily, and striking her horse 
sharply with her riding whip she said in the iciest of 
tones: 

“Pray don’t, Mr. Dalaiid, I detest sentimentaliz- 
ing, and poetry is my horror.” 

A hot flush crimsoned Rex’s frank face to the very 
temples, but he made no reply, resolutely stifled his 
pain, and after an instant’s silence began to con- 
verse quietly on indifferent topics. 

If Eve had but been content to let the matter rest 
so ! Was it pique at this sudden self-control on the 
part of one who had hitherto revealed his admira- 
tion so eagerly, yet so respectfully in every look and 
tone, and now rode so calmly by her side, or was it 
a nobler feeling, a woman’s instinctive shrinkino- 
from the thought of causing pain, that led her, as 
Rex lifted her from her horse at the foot of the broad 
flight of steps, to look up into his face with her 
bewildering eyes, press his hand with a caressing 
clasp that set his hot blood in a flame, and mur- 
mur under her breath: 

“Forgive my rudeness, Mr. Daland, I— I did not 
mean to wound you.” 


LOREI.El: A TAI.E OF THE HUDSON. 


29 


Then, ere he could utter the answer trembling on 
his lips, she had flitted across the wide piazza and 
vanished in the hall.already dusky with the shadows 
of approaching twilight. 

The moon rose late on this, the last evening of their 
sta3% but as they sat chatting gaily in the soft night 
air, heavy with the perfume of the roses clustering 
around the pillars, Arthur suddenly proposed a row 
on the river. Eve and Rex assented, and five min- 
utes after the light boat was pushed off from the 
shore. 

Fora time the little group was strangely silent ; 
perhaps all felt the faint indefinable shadow of pain 
that ever lingers around the hour of parting. Eve, 
leaning back in the boat and drawing her slender 
fingers through the rippling waters, looked so sad 
that, spite of the repulse of the morning, Rex’s heart 
throbbed high with a sweet, wild hope. Could she 
really regret his approaching departure? Arthur’s 
voice suddenly broke the spell. 

“Eve, you look like a picture of Undine we saw at 
the last Paris Exhibition? Don’t you remember, 
Rex? It was by a young German artist, and every- 
body was raving over the transparent effect of tlxi 
waves through which the hand offering the coral 
necklace appeared. I hope your Lorelei will make 
as great a sensation. Eve has given you plenty of 
sittings, at any rate. One every morning, I believe.” 


30 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“Yes, Miss Tresham has been kinder than I could 
have ventured to hope. If the picture is a success I 
shall owe my good fortune solely to her for, as you 
know, Arthur, I utterly despaired of finding the 
embodiment of my Lorelei.” 

“Yes, Eve, if you could only have heard this fel- 
low’s indignant tirade against fashionable young 
ladies when I meekly ventured to suggest that you 
might do for his water-witch, I’m afraid you 
wouldn’t have granted the sittings so good- 
naturedly.” 

Rex flushed hotly and began to stammer a con- 
fused explanation. A strange smile flitted over Eve’s 
face as she turned, interrupting him. 

“I wish it had been any other subject. Do you 
know from a child there has always been something 
horribly weird to me in that Lorelei legend? Sup- 
pose that among all she lured to death there might 
have come some handsome young knight she would 
gladly have saved and yet was forced to see go to 
his doom. There’s a meaning underlying those old 
legends.” 

Her eyes sought the young artist’s. Arthur caught 
the look and exclaimed in a tone that only half veiled 
a sneer : 

“I’ll tell you the meaning. The Lorelei is merely 
the symbol of the modern flirt, who for the sake of 
her own vanity darkens many a fine fellow’s life and 


LORELEI : A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


31 


now and then — we’ve all known such cases— sends 
him out of the world altogether.” 

“Nonsense, Arthur! Men have died and worms 
have eaten them, but not for love; at any rate not 
in the nineteenth century. We’ve grown wiser than 
our forefathers. Haven’t we, Mr. Dalaud ? ” 

The subtle meaning in look and tone were lost on 
Arthur, who was ignorant of the scene of the after- 
noon. 

Rex bent eagerly forward. “No, Miss Tresham, 
the centuries don’t change men’s natures; there are 
still plenty of us wise or foolish enough to think ‘the 
world well lost ’ for a woman’s smile. Those who 
have no love to give should beware of waking it.” 

Van Brunt frowned. “You are right, Rex, and the 
cold-hearted women who do are the true descendants 
of the Lorelei. But pray don’t spend our last even- 
ing in sentimental discussions; let us have some 
music. Eve, I have never heard you sing.” 

“Because I only began to take lessons while you 
were in Europe.” 

There was an instant’s silence ; then her voice rose 
pure, clear, and sweet. The air was a strange, 
weird melody, the song a translation of Heine’s 
“Lorelei.” Eve possessed a rare gift of expression, 
and even Arthur listened as if spell-bound, till in sad- 
dest, most plaintive notes, echoed faintly back by the 
cliffs, the last words died away : 


32 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“This, with her fatal singing, 

The Lorelei hath done.” 

“I never knew that poem was set to musie!”he 
exclaimed, “and how perfectly the air suits the 
words. Who is the composer, Eve? ” 

She laughed merrily. “Is it possible that I can do 
aught to please my lord the king? ” 

“You, Eve?” 

“Even so. There’s nothing very difficult in the air, 
which, however, I really think does suit the rythm. 
Mr. Daland’s picture brought the poem into my head 
and it haunted me till I tried to set it to music — with 
better success than I expected.” 

“Miss Tresham reminds me of the fairy tale of the 
princess to whose cradle all the denizens of elf-land 
brought gifts,” said Rex. 

Something in the tone, the worshiping look that 
rested upon Eve, vexed Arthur. He answered 
sharply .*• 

“That’s no new idea of yours, Rex. I heard the 
same remark made at the club two weeks ago, and 
somebody replied that in the same tale an envious 
fairy, not invited to the christening feast, brought a 
gift that neutralized all the others. He thought Miss 
Tresham would be perfection if only, among her 
many charms and graces, she possessed a very com- 
mon and sometimes troublesome commodity called — 
a heart.” 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


33 


A glance, sudden and swift as the gleam of blue 
steel, darted from Eve’s lovely eyes, but she answered 
quietly: 

“Very flattering in Mr. De Witt, and very chival- 
rous in my cousin to listen to a discussion of my 
character in a club-room by a party of gentle- 
men.” 

“I mentioned no names,” said Arthur quickly,' 
while the flush that crimsoned his cheek showed that 
Eve’s shaft had struck home. 

“No, but I could readily guess my assailant. As 
for his opinion I shall say nothing, except that peo- 
ple are very apt to find me what they think me. Mr. 
De Witt is certainly right from his point of view. I 
have no heart — for him.” 

They had been drifting idly down the river as they 
talked, and the boat now touched the little pier. 
Rex helped Eve ashore, holding the slender ungloved 
fingers in a close, lingering clasp, then drew the small 
hand through his arm and walked on to the edge of the 
pine wood, where they stopped to wait for Arthur. 

The moon, pouring its flood of silver light on 
wharf and river, made the shadow of the trees onl\' 
the more dense. The spicy odor of the pine needles 
floated to them on the soft night breeze, and the only 
sound that reached their ears was the lapping of the 
tiny waves. Rex fancied Eve must hear the loud, 
quick throbbing of his heart. A wild, mad impulse 


34 > 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


to press his lips to the sweet, proud face so near his 
own seized upon him, but he controlled it. Almost 
against his will, as if forced from him by a stronger 
power, the words, so low and husky that he could 
scarcely recognize his own voice, were uttered : 

“May men really hope to find you what they think 
you, no matter into what a heaven of happiness 
those thoughts may soar?” 

He almost held his breath for her answer. Was it 
fancy, or did the little hand really press his arm? A 
moment’s pause. Arthur’s approaching footsteps 
fell upon their ears and Eve murmured hurriedK’’: 

“At least faith will go far to help them on the 
way.” 


II. 

The next evening found the little party widely sep- 
arated, Eve on her way to Newport, Rex in his 
studio in New York, and Van Brunt making prepara- 
tions to join some friends for a month’s shooting in 
the Adirondacks. Mrs. Tresham had given the 
3^oung artist a cordial invitation to repeat his visit, 
an invitation warmly seconded by Eve’s blue eyes, 
and Rex had promised to spend a few more days at 
Hawksnest, if he carried out his intention of taking 
a sketching tour along the Hudson. 


LORELEI: A. TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


35 


Van Brunt’s absence from the city was prolonged 
from week to week. After the stay in the Adiron- 
dacks, friends persuaded him to go to Saratoga, 
then a trip to the White mountains was planned, 
and the last days of September found him in New- 
port. He had heard from Rex less frequently than 
usual, and the tone of the letters was variable, some 
written in the gayest spirits, others betraying the 
utmost depression; but Arthur, who knew that he 
was working steadily at his Lorelei, attributed these 
changes to the variations natural to his friend’s 
character. At each change of plan in his summer 
tour, involving longer absence from New York, he 
had urged Rex to join him, but in vain. The reply 
was invariably that he could not spare the time; he 
must finish his picture, which he hoped would bring 
him both fame and fortune. “I’m getting as money- 
loving as any old miser,” he once wrote, “perhaps 
you can guess wh3^” Arthur puzzled over the sen- 
tence several hours without finding any clue to the 
meaning, and the excitement of a game of polo at 
last drove it from his thoughts. 

On the last night in September, as he sat watching 
the waves roll in, silver-crested by the moon-beams, 
two letters were brought him, one addressed in Rex’s 
well known hand, the other bearing Mrs. Tresham’s 
irregular, somewhat illegible characters. 

Arthur tore open his friend’s envelope first. 


36 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“ Congratulate me,” he wrote ; “ my picture is finished. All who 
have seen it pronounce it a success. And since your practical 
mind, old fellow, will judge by its market value, let me tell you 
that I sold it yesterday for the modest sum of fifty thousand dol- 
lars to a rich Californian, named McMichael, with the proviso 
that it was not to be delivered until after the exhibition. Do n’t 
think I asked such a sum ; he offered it at once, and De Witt, who 
brought him to the studio, whispered me to take it; he was one of 
the men who eounted his income at so much per minute, and could 
afford to gratify his whims. Would you believe it? He was so 
anxious to secure the painting, that mistaking my pause of amaze- 
ment for hesitation, he added that if fifty thousand were not 
enough he would give sixty, but have the pieture he must. Of 
course I aceepted the first offer with thanks, though I confess my 
conscience reproached me a little. But, oh, Arthur, you don’t 
know what that success means to me. I have a presentiment that 
my fate is bound up with it. Never can I describe what I felt 
when I saw Miss Tresham standing in the moonlight on that cliff, 
the very embodiment of my Lorelei. I shall go to Hawksnest 
immediately to tell her of my good luck.” 

A strange uncomfortable foreboding of coming evil 
ran through Arthur’s mind. Y/hy should Rex go to 
Hawksnest to tell Eve of his good fortune ? Surely he 
knew for what reason Mr. McMichael had bought 
the picture at this fabulous price. And yet, if so, 
why did he make no allusion to it? Was it possible 
that he had forgotten the name of Eve’s future 
husband Evidently — and certainly he could have 
no better proof of the folly of the fear that had sud- 
denly sprung up while reading the letter, the fear 
that Rex might have been cherishing a secret lovefor 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


37 


Eve, a love whose success or failure he had in some 
superstitious folly connected with the picture. 

He hastily glanced over the few remaining lines, 
folded the sheet and opened his aunt’s letter. 

Mrs. Tresham, in a somewhat hurried, incoherent 
fashion, informed him that, owing to some business 
requiring Mr. McMichael’s presence in Europe, the 
wedding would take place early in October, a month 
sooner than they had expected. “Eve, dear child,” 
she wrote, “is most unwilling to consent to the 
change. I had no idea she felt thethought of leaving 
me so much. She would only agree on condition that 
the grand display in New York should be given up. 
They are to be married very quietly at Hawksnest 
the night before the steamer sails, no one present 
except near relatives. Be sure to come on at once, 
for as Eve has neither father nor brother, you must 
give her away, and the wedding may take place 
immediately. We are waiting for Mr. McMichael to 
hear from Paris before fixing the day.” 

Arthur glanced at his watch ; there was just time 
to catch the steamer for New York, and the next 
morning found him rolling up Broadway. Scarcely 
giving himself time to breakfast, he hurried to Rex’s 
studio, where he received a most joyous welcome. 
Rex was in the gayest, happiest spirits. After the 
first eager interchange of questions, Arthur asked to 
see the famous picture, and Rex, approaching an 


38 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


easel, proudly tlircw back the curtain flung over it 
and gazed expectantly at his friend. 

“ Magnificent !” exclaimed Arthur. “I congratu- 
late you with all my heart.” 

The picture was indeed a beautiful one. The land- 
scape, as Rex had said, was painted from a sketch he 
had taken during their rowing excursion up the 
Rhine. Lofty frowning cliffs rose in the foreground 
on either side of the river. On the right, bathed in a 
flood of moonlight, stood the Lorelei, her golden 
hair floating over her shoulders as she bent over the 
rocky verge, gazing into the depths below — Eve 
Tresham’s face, but idealized, rendered more beautiful 
than ever by a tender, loving look in the eyes, that 
softened their sparkling brightness. Far below, 
dimly visible in the shadow, a boat drifted down- 
ward toward a jagged rock, round which the rip- 
pling waves of the river, touched here and there by 
the moon-rays, broke in foam. The single occupant, 
a handsome young knight, reckless of his impending 
doom, stood erect in the frail skiff, his arms out- 
stretched toward the Lorelei above. The face, with 
its expression of ardent love and longing, instantly 
recalled to Arthur’s memory Rex’s look, when glanc- 
ing over his shoulder at his sudden exclamation, he 
saw him gazing at Eve’s graceful figure. A thrill of 
pain stung him sharply. What if his vague suspicion 


JLORELEi: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


39 


were correct, and love had lent the young artist’s 
brush this unwonted skill ? 

Still pondering on this thought, he began to stam- 
mer a few words of congratulation, when Rex flung 
his arm over his shoulder, exclaiming: 

“Ah, Arthur, you can never guess what that 
picture is to me. After our visit to Hawksnest I 
vowed that it should be an omen of my fate. If 
successful, I would speak ; if not, my hopes should 
die with me. That’s why I resisted all your tempt- 
ing invitations, and stuck to brush and palette 
throughout the summer, except for three short daj's 
spent at Hawksnest. Now that I have proved what 
I can do, it won’t seem quite so presumptuous in 
Mrs. Tresham’s eyes if I venture to ask her for her 
daughter. Old friend, you have been like a brother to 
me, won’t you wish me luck in my suit?” What a 
bright, happy look the frank face wore! Van Brunt 
turned sick at heart. 

“Tell me, Rex,” he said in a low, husky tone, 
“has Eve given you reason to .suppose—” 

“That I shall have any chance with her?” Rex 
interrupted. “ Yes, it makes me seem like a conceited 
donkey to say so, but she knew the gulf that sepa- 
rates a struggling young artist from a wealthy 
heiress, and like the true, noble-hearted girl she is 
gave me a little help to cross it.” 


4.0 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“She is no heiress, Rex! replied Arthur quickly. 
“Mrs. Tresham has just enough to keep up appear- 
ances, and is most anxious Eve should make a 
wealthy marriage. The girl has been trained for 
that object from babyhood.” 

“But I can show Mrs. Tresham now that I can 
give Eve every comfort; if she herself — ” 

Arthur laid his hands on Rex’s shoulder and said 
gravely: “Dear old fellow, I have known Eve 
Tresham from her earliest childhood, and I warn you 
not to trust — ” 

Rex flushed hotly; a hasty answer was on his lips, 
but a knock at the studio door interrupted it, and 
three young men entered. Hardly were the first 
greetings over when one of them exclaimed : 

“Ah, Van Brunt, what’s this rumor that your 
cousin is to be married to Mr. McMichael to-morrow ? 
Any truth in the story ? I only heard it on my way 
here.” 

Arthur could have cursed himself for his hesitation, 
but the die was cast. There was no time for prep- 
aration, the news he had tried to break gently to 
Rex must fall like a thunderbolt, but the greatest 
mercy now was to deal the blow as quickly as pos- 
sible, so without daring to glance at his friend, lie 
answered hastily : 

“Yes, at least I received a letter from my aunt last 
evening, informing me that some change in Mr. 


LOi<t;i,Ki: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


41 


McMichael’s business arrangements would hasten 
the wedding. They have been engaged since last 
spring.” 

In the confusion of questions and comments that 
followed, Rex’s silence remained unnoticed by all 
save Arthur, who alone saw the young artist’s face 
turn to a livid, ghastly whiteness, as for an instant, 
with his back to the little group, he leaned heavily 
on a richly carved antique chair, one of the “proper- 
ties ” of the studio. Three or four minutes passed, 
then with perfect self-control he joined in the con - 
versation. Van Brunt’s heart stirred with a pang 
of keenest pity, as he noted how utterly the voice 
had lost the hopeful, joyous ring thrilling in its tones 
a few short moments before. It was low and 
hoarse, but only the friend’s ear noted the change. 

A few moments more and Rex excused himself to 
his guests, pleading a business engagement, and 
requesting Arthur to do the honors of his studio in 
his absence. Van Brunt followed him to the door. 

“Let me get rid of these fellows and go with you.” 

Rex shook his head. “Imustbealone,”hegaspcd, 
“to realize — my own folly. Married to-morrow! 
No doubt the picture is intended for a bridal gift. 
Arthur,” — the words came through his set teeth — 
“it’s needless to invent another world of torment for 
our sins. Heaven knows this earth can hold torture 
enough. Good-bye, old friend.” Then forcing a 


42 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


smile: “You see I did well to take that picture for 
an omen ; the error lay only in the interpretation. A 
bridal gift ! ” He turned away, then wrung Arthur’s 
hand and vanished down the stairway. 

Out into the roar of Broadway he plunged, thread- 
ing his way blindly through' the crowd, facing a 
keen, sharp mist, almost a rain, that blew into his 
face, as he made his way toward the landing of the 
Hudson River steamers. It was a gray, raw day, 
with a rising wind; the water looked dull and 
turbid, and when the boat moved off from the wharf 
the increasing dusk made the banks loom through 
the mist in shadowy outlines. Rex paced the deck 
until he reached the landing nearest Hawksnest, 
then sprang on shore, and walked through the dark- 
ness toward the house, more than two miles away. 
The wind, ever increasing in violence, here and there 
tore asunder the heavy pall of clouds, whose jagged 
edges were silvered by the moon, visible at times for 
an instant. At last the well known mansion 
appeared; the moon shining out for a second enabled 
him to make his way along the wide piazza, now 
shrouded in darkness, for the blinds of the dining- 
room windows had been closed to proteet the glass 
from the fieree gusts blowing directly from the river. 
Rex slowly approached. An irresistible impulse had 
brought him here, a wild, mad longing to see Eve 
once more, and learn the truth from her own lips. 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


43 


Perhaps in the depths of his heart still lingered a 
faint, desperate hope that all might yet be well, that 
she would denounce the wdiole story as baseless gos- 
sip. Once he caught himself repeating aloud the 
words she had uttered: “People will find me what 
they think me." He had always believed her true; 
would his loyal faith be rewarded ? 

The wind, with a sudden shriek, tore open one of 
the blinds of the long French windows, then died 
away for an instant. Rex, shielding himself behind 
a pillar, approached and glanced into the room. The 
table in the center was heaped with morocco cases, 
some closed, some half open, revealing a gleam of 
silver amid their satin linings. Eve, her delicate 
blonde beauty rendered still more striking by the 
plain black, woolen dress she wore, relieved at 
throat and waist by clusters of Jacqueminot roses, 
held in both little hands a large case, where, flashing 
and glowing with a thousand prismatic hues that 
fairly dazzled the young man’s eyes, lay a magnifi- 
cent set of diamonds. The girl’s face wore a proud, 
exultant expression as she bent her head a moment 
over the gems, then taking out a pair of superb ear- 
rings, closed the lid, put the case on the table with 
the others, and approaching the mirror, slipped first 
one ornament, then the other into the small, shell- 
like ears, where they glittered like sparks of fire. Her 
lips parted and the notes of the jewel song in 


44 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“Faust” floated faiutlv out to Rex. He fairly 
ground his teeth. 

“So she is like the rest,” he muttered, “not one 
thought of the poor wretch she has deluded. Trying 
on his wedding gift, the diamonds for which she has 
sold her soul. Soul? ” He laughed bitterly. “They 
are right. She has none. The fairies at the christen- 
ing feast denied her that. She has robbed me of 
everything, youth, hope, love, even my art, for how 
can I ever touch a brush again without — ” 

He broke off abruptly, almost with a groan. 

Perhaps the sound reached Eve, for she turned 
slowly from the mirror and, perceiving the open 
blind, approached the window. Suddenly Rex’s 
white face appeared, ghost-like in the darkness, 
almost touching hers. Only the pane of glass 
divided them. Eve turned white and sick. With all 
the very limited capacity of a cold, shallow nature, 
she loved the eager, impulsive, enthusiastic young 
painter, whose strength of passion she was power- 
less to realize, far less fathom. Nay, at times she 
had gone so far as to ask herself whether she could 
not for his sake give up the wealth she craved and 
find contentment by his side. But these moments 
were only when under the spell of Rex’s devotion, 
during the flying visits she had encouraged, when he 
could slip away from New York for a few hours and 
wander by her side through the dusky woods, or 


LORiiLEl: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


45 


row on the broad river. When he had left her, a few 
moments’ reflection made her shake her head over 
the romantic folly, and never did Mr. McMichael 
receive from his fair Bancee letters so charming as 
after one of these visits. 

She had eagerly availed herself of the change in 
the time of her approaching marriage to alter all the 
arrangements, insisting that no one but relatives 
should be invited, and hoping that by making the 
wedding so private no news of it would reach Rex 
until she was beyond his reach on the wide ocean. 
She dreaded a possible scene, and moreover had a 
vague fear that Mr. McMichael might not quite 
approve the little summer idyl enacted at 
Hawksnest. Only five minutes before she had felt so 
safe, the marriage was to take place the next even- 
ing, and, as she mentally phrased it, “nothing 
uncomfortable” had occurred. Rex had probably 
not heard the tidings, or, if any rumor had reached 
him, determined to act in the only sensible wa3^ 
treat the whole affair as a passing flirtation, and 
very possibly on her return from Europe, paint her 
picture in some other style. She would make aloveh’ 
Undine, and induce Mr. McMichael to be a liberal 
patron of the young artist. 

With these thoughts in her mind she had gone to 
the window and confronted Rex. At the first glimpse 
of his white, set face, her hopes vanished. For one 


46 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


moment she turned sick with fear, but the next 
instant her quick brain was revolving the best plan 
of escaping from the difficulty. Mr. McMichael was 
expected in the train that arrived at ten o’clock. It 
was now after eight. In that short time she must 
soothe Rex and send him away, if she did not wish 
to be fatally compromised on the eve of her wedding. 
These thoughts flashed through her mind with the 
speed of lightning in the second that his white lips 
said hoarsely: 

“I must speak to you.” 

Should she admit him or go out into the night? 
Surely the latter plan was the more prudent. Her 
mother or one of the servants might come in at any 
moment, and the interview promised to be a stormy 
one. Throwing a white shawl that lay on the sofa 
around her head, she noiselessly opened the French 
window and glided, wraith-like, into the gloom. A 
gust of wind, sweeping fiercely up from the river^ 
plucked at her hair and dress; the night, now that 
the moon was again shrouded in clouds, was 
intensely dark. 

For one instant her courage sank, then she remem- 
bered her desperate position, the power her lightest 
word had always exerted over the impulsive young 
fellow, and with a half contemptuous smile at her 
own foolish fears, took a step forward. Suddenly 
she felt her slender wrist seized as if in a vise, while 


l^ORELEi: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


47 


she was dragged rapidh^, roughly forward across 
the lawn, toward the pines, now looming a mass of 
denser shadow against the inky sky. She dared not 
cry out; the servants must not find her in this situa- 
tion ; it would be far too fertile a theme for gossip. 
Trembling with a vague fear, she laid her other hand 
upon his arm. 

“Please don’t, Mr. Daland, you hurt me, and — ” 
trying to speak carelessly, “I can’t be dragged 
‘through bush and brier ’in this way. What have 
you to say to me ? ” 

Rex shivered. The same sweet, musical tones that 
had rung in his ears through all the long, long hours 
of that summer, as he bent over his easel, toiling 
unweariedly on, cheered by the bright hopes ever 
floating before him. And now, now — 

Yet Eve had not been wholly mistaken. The soft, 
clinging touch of her fingers on his arm still made his 
pulses thrill. 

“Oh! you can feel thatWnd of pain,” he said bit- 
terly, with a short laugh; yet in the same instant 
released her wrist, drew her slender hand through 
his arm, and walked at a sofiiewhat slower pace 
through the dense gloom of the pines. There is some- 
thing strangely softening in the touch of those we 
love. A sudden revulsion of feeling came over Rex 
at the light pressure of the little hand. After all, 
what he had heard might have been mere idle gos- 


48 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


sip. Then the memory of the scene he had just wit- 
nessed suddenly flashed across his mind with so 
sharp a pang that he almost groaned aloud. Yet, 
linked with that memory, strangely enough, came 
the recollection of the words she had spoken on the 
last evening of his stay with Arthur at Hawksnest. 
“People find me what they think me.” Ah, and had 
he not thought her true, believed in her, trusted her? 
Aye, and he would trust still, until her own words 
proved her false. 

Eve, far more terrified by this strange silence than 
she would have been by the fiercest reproaches, and 
almost breathless from the speed at which she was 
hurried on, made no reply to the taunt. Scarcely 
three minutes elapsed ere they emerged from the 
shadow of the trees, and Rex suddenly paused. The 
moon, gleaming through a rent in the wind-driven 
clouds, shone full upon them, revealing the black 
pines, the sullen waves of the river, crested with 
foam, the narrow path, that curving sharply toward 
the left, led down to the little wharf, while straight 
before them was a ledge of rock scarcely fift\’’ paces 
broad, and slipperj- with the pine needles blown 
thither by many a summer breeze. On the extreme 
verge of the cliff grew the slender ash to wdiich Eve 
had clung on the first evening she crossed Rex 
Daland’s life-path. Its leaves, then green with the 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


49 


rich tints of early summer, now rustled dry and 
withered in the ehill night-wind. 

Rex turned slowly and faced his eompanion. How 
fair she looked, and how he had loved her, nay, loved 
her still. With a fierce, hungry gaze his eyes drank 
in each detail of that exquisite beauty, the perfect 
oval of the faee, the small, regular features and large, 
deep blue eyes, whose sweeping black lashes cast a 
shadow on the rounded eheek. The black dress, with 
its clusters of deep red Jaequeminot roses, brought 
out in yet stronger relief the pure, ereamy com- 
plexion. The diamonds in her ears glittered and 
Hashed like twin stars, the little head, erowned with 
its golden hair, was held proudly erect, but her eyes 
shunned his. She stood like a eriminal before a 
judge, not daring to break the silence. At last Rex 
spoke in a low, hoarse tone: 

‘‘Three months ago, in this very spot, you said, 
‘People will find me what they think me.’ Well,” — 
there was a momentary break in his voice, then he 
continued more firmly, — “/have thought you noble, 
truthful, sineere as you are beautiful. Do I find 
you so?” 

Utter silenee. Not a sound disturbed the dead 
stillness of the night, save the low wash of the water 
against the little wharf and the rustling of the pine 
trees overhead. Rex fancied he eould hear the 
hurried, heavy throbs of his own heart. 


60 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES, 


“Answer me!” lie exclaimed fiercely, suddenly 
seizing both her hands in his strong clasp. “All 
these three months that I have toiled and hoped, 
while you — can you deny it? — lured me on with 
smiles and glances, aye, and words too, words of 
encouragement, were you only playing with me, 
filling up the time till Air. AIcMichael returned ? It 
was a dangerous game.” 

The moon shone full upon his face; something in 
his look or the concentrated fury in his tone startled 
Eve. She shrank back with a low, frightened cry. 

“Oh! Rex, Rex, forgive me.” 

“Forgive you,” he repeated bitterly. “It is an 
easy thing to ask. Do you know what you have 
done? Only drained my life of every joy, of every 
hope, leaving it empty as a withered husk. I might 
have made myself a name among men. I might have 
had my share of happiness— if only I had never looked 
upon your face. Lorelei indeed! Oh! Eve,” with a 
sudden, despairing cry, “and I loved you so dearly.” 

She burst into a passion of sobs. For the moment 
her cold, shallow nature was stirred to its depths. 
All the heart she possessed belonged to her handsome, 
impetuous young lover, and though, when absent, 
she could think and plan with coolest calculation, the 
sight of his grief touched her strangely. In a low, 
hurried voice, half choked wdth tears, she told the 
story of her life— that her mother was far from 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


51 


rich and had been living much beyond her means to 
educate her only daughter and keep up the style 
maintained in the fashionable circle to which their 
family connections gave them admittance. 

“As far back as I can remember anything, Rex, 
mamma has always told me I must marry a rich 
man; my whole education, all my accomplishments 
were to serve this one purpose, and I was willing. I 
had never seen anyone for whom I really cared. I” 
— with a sudden flush crimsoning her face to the 
roots of her golden hair — “I don’t believe I have as 
much love to give as most people. Perhaps” — with 
a little dreary smile — “it has been educated out of 
me. Last winter Mr. McMichael came to New York ; 
everybody was talking about him; everybody won 
dered who would be the lucky girl to become his 
wife. I liked him very well; he’s not a boor, and 
rather fine looking. I wanted to please mamma, and 
I suppose it flattered my vanity to have him lavish 
all his attentions upon me. When in the spring he 
offered himself, I accepted him, and poor mamma was 
so delighted. Then in June Arthur wrote that yon 
were coming. I had seen you once or twice, you had 
been pointed out to me at the theater, and, though 
my trunks were packed for Newport, I determined 
to stay, for I — ” 

She paused a moment and then continued : 


52 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“You came, and from tlie first instant, when lean- 
ing over the eliff I saw you in the boat, I was 
attraeted by a power stronger than my will. I could 
not bear to tell you of my engagement, utter the 
words that I knew would part us forever. The 
longer my silence continued the harder it was to 
speak, and, as my love for j’^ou grew stronger with 
each meeting, I began to hope I might gain courage 
to tell mamma all, and break off my marriage. It 
was not to take place till the late autumn, and that 
seemed so far off in those delicious golden days of 
June and July. Then,” — she paused a moment and 
continued in a lower, more hurried tone, — “then, 
suddenly as a clap of thunder, came a letter from 
Mr. McMichael. Business compelled him to go to 
Paris, and he would not sail without me. I was 
desperate, and oh! Rex, I did try to summon up 
courage to tell mamma, but at my first words she 
was so horrified, spoke of the scandal it would make 
to break the engagement on the very eve of the 
marriage, that it would kill her to be plunged into 
poverty, and she had not a cent left, the very house 
over our heads was mortgaged. I saw it would 
break her heart — ” 

“And did not think of mine,” Rex muttered 
hoarsely. 

The moon shone through a jagged rift in the clouds 
lull upon the pair. What a transformation seemed 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON. 


63 


to Rex to have come upon the woman he had so 
madly worshiped. The violet eyes raised to his 
appeared to glitter with a cold, steely light; beneath 
the mask of faultless beauty he saw the selfish 
heart. Loving him, it might be, with all the strength 
of which her shallow, calculating nature was capa- 
ble, Mr. McMichael’s carriages and diamonds far 
outweighed all the simple happiness he could offer. 
With a revulsion of feeling perhaps natural, he did 
not even give her credit for the pain with which 
every feature of the fair face was now eloquent. A 
passing grief it doubtless would be. Eve Tresham 
was not one to feel any sorrow long, but at this 
moment she was enduring the keenest suffering of 
her life, as she stood gazing for the last time at the 
only man who had ever stirred her cold heart to one 
throb of real emotion, and in whose eyes, now meet- 
ing hers with such an icy look, she read, in place of 
passionate devotion, only contempt and scorn. 

The clouds had again drifted over the moon, and 
the outlines of Rex’s tall figure were scarcelj^ discern- 
ible, as in a low, steady voice, with a touch of 
mocking sarcasm in the tones, he said : 

“But it would be folly to reproach a woman like 
you for breaking one heart more or less. What is it 
to you that my life will henceforth be a worthless 
thing, not because of foolish love and longing,— no, 
you have killed all that by simply showing me a 


54 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


glimpse of your true self, — but because you have 
robbed me of my faith in all things good and beauti- 
ful, and that faith is the breath of an artist’s life. 
Without it existence is scarce worth — ” 

He stopped suddenly, perliaps afraid of betraying 
the agony he suffered, and which, in his sudden 
change of feeling, he fancied would gratify her 
vanity; then, after a moment’s pause, added in tones 
of the most formal courtesy: 

“If you are not afraid to walk back to the house 
alone. Miss Tresham, I will take leave of you here. 
The skiff is at the pier, and I’ll row down the river 
to the next landing. Mr. McMichael ” — here a 
touch of savage irony broke through the cold 
civility of his voice — “is expected this evening, and 
should he find us together might demand an expla- 
nation which perhaps would cost you the diamonds I 
saw you admiring an hour ago.” 

With the inconsistency that with some women sud- 
denly enhances the value of anything lost beyond 
recall. Eve Tresham at that moment was ready, nay 
eager, to give up the wealth and luxury she had been 
taught from infancy to believe the greatest good 
earth could bestow, only to have one of the worship- 
ing glances of which Rex’s dark eyes had been so 
prodigal, to feel once more the warm clasp of his 
strong hand. 


LORELEI: A TALE OF THE HUDSON, 


65 


Moving forward a step she stretched out both 
arms, exclaiming passionately: 

“Rex, dear Rex, come back to me! ” 

A fierce gust of wind drowned the words, her 
arms embraced the empty air, the trees swayed and 
creaked above her head, an owl hooted drearily, the 
darkness was so intense that she could not see a foot 
from where she stood. She strained her ears to hear 
his steps on the path leading to the little pier — no 
sound. Suddenly the fierce wind swept the clouds 
aside, the moon cast a pale, livid light on the black 
water, the black pines. No figure was visible on the 
wharf; she glanced toward the clilf, saw Rex almost 
on the verge, and called his name in tones whose 
passionate appeal rang above the fierce howling of 
the storm. He started at the cry, half turned toward 
her, his face radiant with a sudden hope, but. in the 
same instant his foot slipped on the pine needles 
with which the rocks were strewn, there was a 
momentary effort to recover himself, a clutch at the 
ash tree — the cliff was empty, and a heavy plash 
echoed from the sullen waves below. 

Had he gone to the cliff intending to throw himself 
into the river, or merely missed the way in the dark- 
ness, mistaking it for the path that led to the pier? 
Who could say? 

The next morning the papers were full of details of 
the sad accident which had befallen one of the most 


56 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


promising young artists in the city. Going up the 
Hudson to spend the night at the house of an inti- 
mate friend, he had strolled out with the lady’s 
daughter to watch the storm, and while standing on 
a cliff, lost his footing. The servants summoned by 
Miss Tresham’s screams, were too late to render 
any assistance, indeed the bruises on the head 
showed that he must have been stunned, if not 
killed b}’ the rocks in his fall. 

One paragraph continued: “Rumors assert that 
the young lady, one of the most beautiful belles in 
New York, is about to marry Mr. McMichael, the 
California millionaire, and fortunate possessor of 
the dead man’s last work, a superb painting, con- 
taining most brilliant promise of future fame, to 
which Mr. Daland had given the name of ‘Lorelei.’” 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 




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THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


“Really, Egerton, I feel as if I were doing an 
unconscionably selfish thing to take you down to 
Sand Beach for a fortnight, when you’ve only a 
month more to spend in America.” 

“Not at all, my dear fellow. I shall enjoy the rest 
after our hunting trip on the plains. Besides, the 
romance of the thing attracts me; I always supposed 
that Americans were too practical for such senti- 
mental arrangements.” 

“Romance,” muttered Harvey Langton, angrily. 
“The greatest absurdity that ever any sensible man 
committed! Mabel Heatherstone was only ten 
years old when the will was made, and I fourteen. I 
had just gone to England with my father. How 
could old Heatherstone possibly know that I 
wouldn’t turn out the most objectionable person in 
the world for a son-in-law? ” 

“Perhaps he thought bon sang ne pent mentir” 
replied his English companion, laughing. “Didn’t 
you tell me that the old gentleman was a great 

69 


60 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


believer in blood and, like yourself, belonged to the 
New England aristocracy, whose ancestors ‘came 
over in the Mayflower? ’ ” 

Harvey Langton’s sun-burnt face flushed. 

“I know what Englishmen think of American aris- 
tocracy,” he began, “but, after all — ” 

“After all,” interrupted his friend, “we all claim 
descent from ‘ the grand old gardener and his wife ’ 
and need not quarrel over minor distinctions. Tell 
me, instead, how long it is since a'ou saw the young 
lady who, by her father’s will, forfeits her fortune if 
she refuses you ? ” 

“Ten, no — eleven years. She was ten, and will be 
twenty-one the sixth of October.” 

“Was she a pretty child ? ” 

“Not in the least. Pale, scrawny, awkward, but 
she had the most magnificent hair I ever saw. It 
looked like spun gold, and fell in silky masses below 
her waist. Her father always called it ‘the golden 
fleece.’ He was very fond of her, poor man.” 

“And so, like a modern Jason, you are setting out 
in pursuit of the golden fleece?” laughed Walter 
Egerton. 

“By no manner of means. To marry a girl under 
such circumstances would be hateful to me, were she 
the embodiment of all the graces. But what am I 
to do ? Here’s this letter from the executor, inform- 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


61 


ing me that Miss Heatherstone is at the Surf House, 
Sand Beach, and evidently expecting me to rush 
there at once. I can’t well refuse to go. Was ever a 
fellow in such a dilemma? It’s enough to make one 
hate Venus herself.” 

“Where does the property go in case of her 
refusal?” 

“To a charitable institution. She is to have onh' 
five thousand dollars, just enough to keep her from 
beggary. And this, remember, is done by a man 
devotedly attached to his only child — partly to save 
her from fortune-hunters, partly on account of a 
debt of gratitude owed to my father, who gave him 
his first start in life, and partly because he took a 
fancy to my humble self. Of course that isn’t the 
precise wording; but it’s the gist of the affair. The 
will really ought to be broken on the plea that the 
testator was of unsound mind.” 

“And when, if all went well, was the young lady 
to be put in possession of the property ? On her 
wedding day, I suppose?” 

“No, on the day after the engagement was 
announced.” 

“What?” cried the young Englishman, starting 
from his comfortable lounging chair. “And you call 
that a desperate dilemma ? Why, I’ll cut the Gordian 
knot for you in a trice. Go down to Sand Beach, 


62 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


play tte devoted lover to the best of your ability, 
offer yourself, and if she accepts you — which of course 
she will — see that the fortune is safely made over to 
her and then, if you don’t wish to fulfill the con- 
tract, tell her you have done your best to extricate 
her from the difficulty in which her father’s will 
involved her, that you appreciate the filial devotion 
which led her, out of regard to his last wishes, to 
accept so unworthy a fellow as yourself, that you 
cannot consent to profit by the sacrifice, and, there- 
fore, since the will doesn’t insist u^on a. marriage, 
only an engagement, you, by breaking the bond, will 
leave her free to follow the dictates of her own heart, 
etc., etc. See how prettily that is worded, saves her 
pride, gets you out of the scrape. Wh}", Langton, 
you didn’t know what a good turn you were doing 
yourself, when, at the risk of your life, you fished me 
out of the Cam the day the ’Varsity boat upset. It 
is a fine thing to have a friend in need. But come, 
let’s be off! I’m all impatience to reach the Surf 
House, see the young lady, and commence our little 
game.” Then, evidently struck by a fresh thought, 
he threw himself back in his chair, and half choked 
with laughter, exclaimed: 

“What a capital joke it would be if you fell des- 
perately in love with her ! ” 

“A highly probable contingency, from my recollec- 
tions. It’s well to enjoy the joke in anticipation, for 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


63 


you’ll have no chance in reality,” replied the Ameri- 
can, in a somewhat indignant tone. 

******** 

A broad sandy beach ; the sea flashing back the 
last sunset rays which touched with crimson the 
white sails of the fishing fleet in the offing; along 
wooden building surrounded with tier after tier of 
piazzas; bathing garments of various sizes and 
colors flapping from a line in the salt breeze ; bare- 
footed children wading in the rippling surf; on the 
lowest piazza what seemed like a throng of ladies, a 
throng that later resolved itself into some twenty or 
thirty maids and matrons “watching for the ’bus,” 
the principal entertainment of the day at the Surf 
House. Such was the scene the two 3’^oung men 
beheld three hours after the conversation just 
related, as the “’bus,” a lumbering vehicle, turned a 
corner and stopped before the steps of the wooden 
structure, a mushroom growth, whose rooms had 
not all attained the dignitj^ of laths and plaster. 

“This is running the gauntlet !” exclaimed Eger- 
ton, glancing askance at the numerous representa- 
tives of the fair sex. Then, lowering his voice, he 
added: “Do you see anyone who looks like your 
future BanceeF” 

“No, but doubtless she’s watching us from some 
coign of vantage. Come, let us vanish as speedily as 
possible. I want to get rid of some of the real 


64 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


estate we’ve accumulated on the way. There surely 
never was a dustier road.” 

Blue, brown, and black eyes, more or less furtively, 
according to their owners’ natures, watched the 
friends as they hastily walked down the piazza and 
entered the open door of the hotel. Their advent 
had evidently created a sensation. Two young girls 
alone seemed to take no share in the general interest, 
but stood idly leaning against the railing of the 
piazza, gazing seaward. One was tall and slender, 
with a queenly carriage of the head, whose blue-black 
coils of hair were gathered in a graceful knot, the 
other, of medium height, had, like Tenn3'Son’s Maud, 
a head “sunning over with curls,” whose golden hue 
formed a charming contrast to her companion’s 
dark tresses. 

“Look, Marian,” she murmured, glancing over her 
shoulder as the two young men disappeared, “there 
goes the future husband. I wonder which one it is. 
I shall never be able to carry out my share of our 
plan ; my courage is failing already. He’ll be sure to 
find me out.” 

“Nonsense, May, you must. You promised, and 
‘ all’s fair in love and war.’ This is war to the knife. 
Didn’t we agree that a man who would marry a girl 
merely for the sake of her money deserved no mercy? 
It will serve him right. Don’t spoil all at the last mo- 
ment.” She glanced at the watch in her belt. “It is 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


65 


time to dress. This is ‘hop’ night, and I want you 
to look your prettiest. Everylhiug depends on first 
impressions. We’ll have tea sent to our rooms, and 
not come down till it is time for the dancing to 
begin.” 

Five hours later the long dining-hall of the Surf 
House, transformed into an impromptu ball-room, 
was echoing with the notes of a gay waltz, and 
among the couples were Langton and golden-haired 
May Heatherstone. Her fair face had flamed with 
blushes when, on learning her identity, the young man 
presented himself as an acquaintance of her child- 
hood and asked permission to introduce his friend. 
The graceful ease with which she received Egerton 
was in marked contrast to the blushes and con- 
straint with which she had greeted Langton, and 
then, turning as if for support to the dark-haired, 
violet-eyed beauty by her side, stammered in tones 
faltering with embarrassment: 

“Mj'- cousin. Miss Ma— Marian Heatherstone, 
from, from Neva— Nebraska ! ” Evidently Miss 
Heatherstone was not ignorant of the object of 
Harvey Langton’s visit to the Surf House, and the 
consciousness of this fact did not tend to prepossess 
the young man in her favor. Still, as in duty bound, 
he requested her hand for the waltz and while 
awaiting thestrainsof theinevitable “ Beautiful Blue 


66 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Danube” turned, to relieve the a-wkwardness of the 
situation, to the queenly Marian, a lovely vision in 
her snowy draperies looped here and there with 
bunches of scarlet geraniums. Langton’s eyes, 
accustomed for several years to the more robust 
type of English beauty, rested admiringly on the 
slender,gracefulfigure,regular features, dazzlingly fair 
complexion, and violet eyes, which gained an added 
charm from the piquant contrast afforded by her 
blue-black hair. Responding with ready ease to his 
first remark, the two fell into a conversation so 
pleasant to Langton that a feeling of most unwar- 
rantable irritation seized upon him as the first notes 
of the “Blue Danube” fell upon his ear, and Egerton, 
turning from what seemed a very lively exchange of 
repartee with Langton’s future bride, addressed a 
courteous remark to her cousin. 

Langton silently passed his arm around May 
Heatherstone’s waist and whirled her over the 
polished floor. A light, graceful dancer was the wife 
his father’s friend had selected for him; pretty, too, 
he was forced to admit as, momentarily relieved 
from her embarrassment by the excitement of the 
rapid movement, she raised her sparkling blue eyes 
to his with a gay, half-breathless remark. His glance 
rested a moment on her red-gold tresses; her 
father’s pet name, “the golden fleece,” returned to 
his memory, and he involuntarily said: 


THE GOI.DEN FLEECE. 


67 


“Your hair has changed its color very slightly, 
Miss Heatherstone; I remember perfectly — “ 

“Why, I was a real little carrot-top!” the girl 
impulsively exclaimed, interrupting him. Then as 
she met his surprised look, a sudden return of sh}’- 
ness flooded her face with swift blushes to the very 
roots of her hair. 

“You slander your curls,” Langton replied; “they 
were the great beauty of your childhood ” — the only 
one, I might say, he mentally added. “I remember 
you very well, a slender little thing, intent, when I 
last saw’ you, on taking the best care of a huge wax 
doll,” he w’ent on, somew’hat mischievously. “Do 
you recollect me at all ? ” 

“I — I — don’t know%” she stammered, flushingpain- 
fully again. Then suddenly raising her eyes to his 
she said firmly, with a half-defiant expression : “No, 
I don’t remember you at all. Not at all,” she 
repeated. 

Childish recollections are dangerous ground, 
thought Langton. I won’t pursue the subject. No 
wonder she feels somewhat embarrassed, but wh}^ 
need the girl act as if she expected a proposal every 
minute? 

Just at that instant, the waltz, with a sudden 
crash of instruments, came to an end, and the pair 
stopped beside one of the long windows opening upon 
the piazza. The breeze blowing from the sea stirred 


68 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Miss Heatherstone’s fair hair and fanned her cheeks, 
whose scarlet flush was not wholly due to the excite- 
ment of the dance. An exquisitely pretty little crea- 
ture, thought Langton. What a pity she has no 
conversation. Then, following the direction of her 
blue eyes, he caught a glimpse of snowy draperies 
and the gleam of scarlet on the dusky piazza. 

“Shall we go out?” he asked eagerly, and Miss 
Heatherstone no less eagerly assented. 

“How cool you look, Marian!” cried the girl- 
slipping her hand from her escort’s arm as she joined 
her cousin. “It is too warm to dance.” 

Egerton made a laughing reply, and when the four 
began to pace up and down the broad veranda, in 
some inexplicable fashion the “golden fleece,” as he 
mentally styled her, was walking by the young 
Englishman’s side. Langton, though becoming 
more and more charmed by the beautiful Nebraskan^ 
could not help noting that his whilom partner, so 
shy and taciturn with him, evidently found plenty to 
say to his friend ; her silvery laugh, constantly ring 
ing on the night air, chimed in pleasantly with the 
low wash of the waves on the sand and the softened 
cadences of the dance-music from the ball-room. 

Soon Egerton pleaded for “just one turn,” and the 
pair slipped in at a window, leaving Marian and 
Langton to a tete-k-tete. Acquaintance progresses 
rapidly under such circumstances, and, ere an hour 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


69 


had passed, Langton found himself involuntarily 
wishing that Fate had allotted him his present com- 
panion for his life-jo urne\', and mentally acknowledg- 
ing that he would then have considered it no hard- 
ship to comply with the father’s wishes. The com- 
parison silently drawn between the cousins was 
suddenly voiced in a remark, whose abruptness he 
realized as Miss Heatherstone involuntarily started 
at his exclamation: 

“How very young Miss Mabel appears for her 
age!” There was an instant’s delay in his com- 
panion’s reply, and, glancing at her, he saw, to his 
intense amazement, a scarlet flush staining the 
snowy fairness of her cheek and brow. The remark 
had evidently annoyed her, for there was a chilling 
distance in the tone of her answer. 

“ Do you think so ? ’’and she instantly added, “Are 
not those the lights of a steamer rounding the point 
yonder?” She was clearly not disposed to discuss 
her cousin, and had probably fancied he intended to 
question her about the future wife he had — ^in her 
opinion — come to the Surf House to seek. Langton 
felt unaccountably irritated by the supposition. The 
Conversation flowed less smoothly during the next 
five minutes ; a subtle sense of constraint oppressed 
him, and he was half inclined to welcome the return 
of Egerton and his partner, who were jesting gaily 
together as they approached. 


70 


Lorelei and other stories. 


Half an hour later, the two young men were enjoy- 
ing the soothing influenee of their eigars, and natu- 
rally diseussing their eompanions of the evening. 

“By Jove! ” exelaimed Egerton, in a tone midway 
between jest and earnest, “ were I in your plaee, old 
fellow, I should find no diffieulty in submitting to 
the terms of the will. Strange mortals we are, never 
satisfied to take the gifts the gods provide us. A 
more eharming girl I never met. So gay and bright, 
so simple and unaffected, and — so exquisitely pretty, 
too ! I never spent a pleasanter evening. She gave 
me a most amusing description of her life ‘out West’ 
on her father’s ranch.” 

“ Her father's ranch ? Her uncle’s, you mean. Old 
Heatherstone didn’t believe in investing in real 
estate. I remember, though, he had a brother some- 
where in the far West. I suppose Mabel visited 
there.” 

“No doubt, and likes it much better than the East 
she says. What a jolly little wife she would make 
for a ranchman! Of course, having come to this 
country to purchase land, I was specially interested 
in what she had to say. She really gave me some 
information well worth having about ‘locating,’ as 
she called it.” 

“Yes,” replied Langton, half resentfully, “she 
seemed to find no difficulty in talking to you ; to me 
she vouchsafed only monosyllables and blushes. It’s 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


71 


a confoundedly disagreeable, awkward position for 
both of us,’' he added, irritably. “I wish I had 
never come here. She acts as if she expected me to 
ask the fateful question every moment. Still,” he 
added, more amiably, “of course, the predicament is 
as bad for her as for me, poor girl. I’ll get it over as 
soon as possible, but a fortnight is the shortest limit 
in which I could reasonably be supposed to fall in 
love. I want her to accept me; it would be a shame 
for her to lose the fortune. If one could only explain 
the whole thing to her,” he continued, sighing 
wearily, “but I can’t make up my mind to deliber- 
ately tell her your plan. It would be easier to do it 
if she refuses me. In that case I’ll try to persuade 
her, as a mere matter of form, to reconsider her 
decision and engage herself to me until I can put her 
in possession of the property.” 

A week sped by. After the unconventional Ameri- 
can fashion, the four were inseparable. Rowing, 
sailing, bathing, fishing, dancing and driving filled 
the hours. Mabel’s shyness partially wore away, 
but her laugh was less gay, her repartee less ready, 
when talking with Langton than with his English 
friend. Langton omitted no attention that his posi- 
tion of aspiring lover demanded, but though in 
walking or riding he set off by Mabel’s side, he was 
very sure to return with Marian; the first dance in 
the evening was always Mabel’s, the long stroll on 


72 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


the dusky piazza Marian’s, and the spell her fair, 
stately beauty had exerted upon Langton in the first 
hour of their meeting daily strengthened, rendering 
his position as Mabel’s supposed lover more irksome 
every hour. 

After the day following their arrival Egerton had 
made no allusion to the object of their visit; both 
friends tacitly ignored the subject, but there was a 
strange significance in the care with v/hich, during 
any chance half hour spent together, they avoided 
mentioning the cousins. 

The limit fixed by Langton as the earliest possible 
time at which he could offer himself to Miss Heather- 
stone had come and passed, but, though there was 
no lack of opportunity to secure half an hour alone 
with Mabel, some hidden power sealed his lips. 
Each morning he resolved that the task should be 
accomplished before sunset; each night the silent 
question in Egerton’s eyes remained unanswered. 
The sixteenth day of their stay had passed. Egerton 
was sitting alone, smoking, listening to the thunder 
of the surf on the beach and waiting for his friend. 
A quick step echoed in the corridor, and Langton 
entered. In the dim light his face looked white and 
set. He flung himself silently into a chair, and for a 
few moments not a word was exchanged. At last 
Langton exclaimed: “I thought I would not tell 
you, Egerton, but I’m hard hit and must speak to 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


73 


someone. Our plan”— even in his pain he was too 
true a gentleman to say jour— “has cost me what I 
value most in all the world.” 

He hesitated a moment, then went on: “I’ve been 
walking on the shore with Marian — Miss Heather- 
stone. I had determined to ask her to be my wife, 
but wishing first to explain my attentions to her 
cousin, and knowing that she must be acquainted 
with the contents of that execrable will, resolved to 
tell her what purpose had brought me here. I first 
spoke of my love for her, and, Egerton ” — his voice 
shook, but he resolutely steadied it —“she listened as 
a woman listens to a man she cares for. I can still 
feel the slight pressure of her little hand on my arm ; 
see the soft light in her eyes. ‘But, Marian,’! added, 
‘you know of your uncle’s absurd will. Your cousin 
forfeits her whole fortune if she does not accept me 
for her husband. I am in honor bound to offer ’ — 
before I could add another word she had snatched 
her hand from mine, exclaiming— each word seemed 
like a dagger-thrust — ‘To offer what serves you in 
place of a heart. I understand perfectly, sir. It 
would be a pity for my cousin to forfeit her fortune, 
since Mr. Langton would also lose the wealth he has 
crossed the sea to seek. If May feels as I do, she 
would rather starve than marry a fortune-hunter.’ 
She said more, Egerton,” — his face grew whiter as he 
spoke, — “uttered words that nothing but death can 


74 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


ever make me forget. It is useless to repeat them, 
but— I shall not offer myself to May Heatherstone. 
It is no duty of mine to make amends for her father’s 
folly. I see that now.” 

He held out his hand, gave his friend’s a warm, 
strong clasp and added: “1 think I know where she 
will find amends for the loss of her riches. You are 
no ‘fortune-hunter,’ Egerton.” 

“But this is horrible injustice, Langton,” cried the 
Englishman, eagerly. “Let me explain to her — ” 

“No,” interrupted Langton, firmly. “She would 
not hear me — gave me no chance to speak. I won’t 
win her by another’s pleading. If she had really 
cared—” 

He paused abruptly and rose from his seat. “I 
shall leave here to-morrow by the first train. 
Unluckily it does not go till noon. You will stay, 
of course. Remember, old friend, with all my heart, 
or” — smiling bitterly — “with ‘what serves me in 
place of a heart,’ I wish you success and happiness. 
Good-night.” Another clasp of hands and the two 
young men parted. 

Idlers on the hotel piazza the next morning gos- 
siped, as is the wont of the fraternity, about 
Langton’s non-appearance with the rest of his 
party. Some one, more enterprising or more 
inquisitive than the rest, learned that he had been 
seen going down to the shore directly after break- 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


75 


fast. The bathing hour was early, and Langton 
had taken a position on a high rock overlooking the 
beach — he longed for one more glimpse of the fair 
face that must henceforth be only a memory. The 
strong wind that had been blowing all the night 
before had sunk to a light breeze, but the sea still 
broke heavily on the sand, and there were fewer 
bathers than usual. 

“ What glorious surf! ” Langton suddenly heard 
Mabel Heatherstone exclaim, and glancing down he 
saw Egerton, Mabel and Marian standing just on 
the edge of the line of the creamy foam rippling 
upward along the beach. 

“Going in with the ladies, Mr. Egerton?” asked a 
hotel acquaintance, a pleasant young fellow. 
“YouUl need to be a little careful, the undertow is 
very strong this morning, but the surf is splendid,” 

Langton raised himself on one elbow and looked 
out over the wide gleaming blue expanse, then down 
at the strip of brown, wrinkled sand. The grating 
sound of the water rushing back after the thunder- 
ing roar of the fall of each succeeding breaker told 
his practiced ear the force of the mysterious power, 
yclept “the undertow,” and he leaned forward to 
shout a warning to his friend, but the trio, hand in 
hand, had already gone beyond the third line of 
rollers — the slope of the beach was very gradual — 
and the noise of the surf, the rattle of the shingle 


76 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


after each receding wave, and their own gay laughter 
drowned his voice. Langton watched them a few 
minutes, then his eyes wandered to the white sails in 
the offing and followed the graceful flight of the sea- 
gulls skimming over the waves. 

A shout from below startled him. People were 
rushing to and fro in confusion. One glance — 
and Langton’s blood seemed turning to ice. An 
unusually high surge had broken Egerton’s clasp of 
Marian Heatherstone’s hand, sweeping her several 
yards from him and beyond her depth. To swing 
himself down the rock, some thirty feet in height, 
and reach the spot from the beach ere rescue would 
be too late, was impossible. The sole chance was to 
spring from the cliff into the sea. The tide was set- 
ting tow^ard it, and so much was in his favor. Had 
the rock sloped sheer down to the water the feat 
would have been easy, but at its foot numerous 
small boulders reared their jagged tops. If in his 
leap he failed to clear them, death was certain. 
Dashing off his coat and hat, he drew back to give 
himself the advantage of the short run the width of 
the rock permitted ; a cry of mingled warning and 
horror rose from the lips of some one who saw the 
movement and divined his purpose; but ere it died 
away Langton had made the plunge in safety and 
was breasting the water with all the might love and 
fear could lend. The one look cast at the group 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


77 


before taking the leap had showed him Marian 
swept from Egerton’s hold, but fortunately toward 
the cliff. Langton saw the girl’s upturned face white 
with fear, then a huge roller bore her under. Half 
maddened by terror, the lover struggled on. Neither 
strength nor courage availed now; all depended 
upon whether the next surge should fling her upward 
— to life and love, or drag her, in the frightful clutch 
of the undertow, down to the depths. In his ears 
rung the words he had spoken the night before; 
“Nothing but death can make me forget.” Had 
death come to blot out the cruel speech the dear lips 
had uttered ? Suddenly, almost within reach of his 
hand, a gleam of scarlet shone through the waves; 
the next instant he had clasped the helpless form — a 
few more buffets from the breakers, reluctant to 
yield their prey, and he gained a footing. Many 
Hands were now stretehed to aid, but he pressed 
steadily on. Marian’s eyes were closed, the face rest- 
ing on his shoulder wore a death-like pallor, but he 
eould feel the faint flutter of her heart. The large 
straw hat and close-fitting bathing cap had been 
swept awa}^ and her hair, dripping with water, fell 
like a veil around her slender figure — a veil of gold. 
Langton paid no heed, his thoughts were too mueh 
absorbed by gratitude for the peril eseaped. Just as 
he stepped on the firm sand of the beach. May 


78 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Heatherstone’s arms were thrown around hei 
cousin. 

“Oh, Mabel, Mabel!” she cried. “Is she dead? 
My darling, darling cousin! I believe she let that 
horrible wave sweep her away,” the impulsive girl 
continued in a tone of horror. “She said last night 
she didn’t want to live. Oh, if I had only never 
taken part in this hateful, hateiul plot! Mr. 
Langton, she is your Mabel, I am only her cousin 
May. She made me call her by her middle name, 
Marian — I was so afraid I should forget. She was 
very angry because she fancied you were going to 
marry her for her fortune, and — and — we thought it 
would serve you right to mortify you by making you 
pretend to care for the wrong girl. So she covered 
her pretty hair lest it should betray her. But we 
never dreamed it would be anything more than pre- 
tending, you know; she was sure she should hate 
you, and now — oh! ” she exclaimed, interrupting her 
torrent of incoherent speech with a cry of delight, 
“she isn’t dead ; she is opening her eyes ! Oh, I’m so 
glad, so glad I told! Now we can all be happy 
together!” 

Egerton’s eyes sparkled at the young girl’s uncon- 
scious betra}^! of the secret of her innocent heart, 
and, noting the half-bewildered expression with 
which his friend was gazing at her, he touched his 
arm, glanced at the mass of dripping golden tresvses 


THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 


79 


falling over Miss Heatherstone’s scarlet bathing suit 
and whispered, 

“The golden fleece.” 

At any other moment Langton might have been 
filled with wrath at the discovery of the ruse so 
successfully played upon him, but there was now no 
room in his soul for resentment. Love and grati- 
tude excluded every other feeling. 

Guests who enjoy the charming hospitality of the 
Toison de Oro Ranch, jointly owned and occupied 
during a portion of the 3^car by Harvey Langton 
and his English friend, suppose the name to be a 
pretty symbol of the gold annually flowing into 
their purses from the clipped fleeces of the sheep 
grazing by thousands on its wide pasture lands — 
only^ the two husbands and their sunny-haired wives 
know why their beautiful estate in the far West 
bears the musical Spanish name of “The Golden 
Fleece.” 






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CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


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CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


“Wal, Abner, I s’pose tlier’s no use in wishin’, but 
seems ez ef I could die easier ef I knew thet the old 
farm, which hez ben in the fam’ly ever sence the 
Injuns were druv out o’ this part o* the kentry, 
would be owned by a Richards after we’ve passed 
away. I’d a deal rather see every stick o’ timber in 
the house swept off the face o’ the airth by one o’ 
them cyclones you’ve just ben readin’ ’bout, than to 
hev its roof shelter anybody who hadn’t the name. 
P’r’aps ’t aint right to feel so, but I wuz born on the 
old place, ye know, an’ I b’lieve, though your father 
wuz so likely — smarter’n any man for miles around” 
(the speaker’s eyes sparkled with a flash of pride) — 
“I’m not so sure ez I would hev married him ef he 
hed n’t ben a Richards. We wuz second cousins, so you 
hev a double share of the blood. Seems strange you 
don’t set more by the name.” 

The tones were half querulous, half sad; the 
speaker, a tall, spare woman, clad in an iron-gray 
dress, that looked as if it had been chosen to match 

83 


84 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


the thin, iron-gray locks escaping from under a neat 
cap, glanced timidly across the table at her son, a 
stalwart farmer, bronzed and bearded. He had just 
risen from his chair, and stood silent a moment, his 
head a little bent, looking down at his mother with 
a glance that seemed to reflect a shade of the sadness 
echoing in her voice. 

“No, there is no use in wishing. My fate was set- 
tled years ago,” he replied in a low, firm tone, turn- 
ing away; then as if moved by a sudden impulse he 
went up to his mother’s chair and patted her 
shoulder, saying kindly : 

“I know it is hard to think of the old farm pass- 
ing into the hands of strangers, but” — he paused a 
moment, drawing his breath through his set teeth — 
“it would be still harder for me to put anyone else 
in what should have been her place.” 

“After all these years, Abner?” 

“Ay, ipother — after all these years. We Richards 
don’t easily forget.” 

He stood still a moment, glancing around the 
pleasant, spotlessly neat kitchen, where, according 
to old custom, the family meals were served, then 
walking slowly to the door, opened it, passed out 
into the bright autumn sunshine, and turned in the 
direction of the apple orchard covering the side of 
the hill which sheltered the house from the fierce 
north winds. 


CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


86 


The sky was blue and bright, large fleecy clouds 
swept swiftly across it, a strong breeze was blowing, 
a remembrance of the storm that had raged all the 
previous night — tossing the gnarled branches of the 
apple trees and leaving here and there disastrous 
traces of its work in an uprooted trunk, while the 
ground was strewn with red and golden fruit. 

Abner strolled slowly on toward the hill-top. Ilis 
erect carriage and long, stead^-^ strides, were singu- 
larly unlike the slouching gait that frequently 
characterizes tillers of the soil, and bore witness to 
the four-years’ drill of 1860-65. He had left the old 
farm when a lad of eighteen, carrying with him in 
his constant heart the memory of a slender, blue-eyed 
girl, a neighbor’s daughter, whom he had dragged to 
the district school-house on his sled through many a 
winter’s snow-drift, and who, on the eve of his 
departure, had given him, under the boughs of the 
apple orchard, a lock of golden hair, and promised, 
when he came back, to be his wife. 

Letters signed Lily C. made their waj^ regularly to 
the army, and were more and more treasured as the 
slow years went by — then, three months before 
Abner’s return, they grew less frequent. The lover, 
with the proud reserve of his New England tempera- 
ment, made no complaint. At last, two da 3 's before 
he was mustered out of his regiment, his mother 
wrote, sandwiched between tidings of the crops and 


86 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


the weather — “ Lily Cobb hasbeen very poorly lately, 
too sick to come to church last Sabbath. Some of 
the neighbors say she has galloping consumption ; 
her folks all go that way.” The young couple had 
guarded their secret so carefully that even the 
mother’s keen eyes had failed to detect it. 

How wearily the next forty-eight hours dragged 
along! The soldier needed all his discipline to 
enable him to endure the torture of w^aiting. Then 
he hurried homeward as fast as steam could carry 
him, but alas, to find only— a grave. 

A long slow fever followed — the result of the hard- 
ships of the four years’ campaign was the verdict of 
the physician summoned from the nearest city, but 
at last the pitiful little story found its way through 
the neighborhood, investing the handsome young 
soldier with a halo of romantic interest. 

“He’ll get over his trouble soon an’ be lookin’ out 
fur a wife; his mother’s growin’ old and can’t be 
steppin’ round the house as lively as she used ter,” 
said the gossips. But spring after spring wove a 
pink and white mantle for the apple-trees, autumn 
after autumn painted their fruit with gold and crim- 
son, and still there was no new mistress at the 
Richards farm. 

Abner’s father had died during his son’s absence, 
and the young farmer remained deaf to all his 
mother’s hints and suggestions, sometimes listening 


CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


87 


in silence, sometimes, when the hints became com- 
plaints and entreaties, impatiently quitting the 
house and ascending with long, swift strides the hill- 
side where grew the old apple-orchard beneath 
whose boughs his Lily, with a pink flush on her fair 
cheeks that rivaled their dainty blossoms, had 
plighted her troth to him. 

This morning, as usual, he had bent his steps there, 
bowing his head ever and anon to avoid some droop- 
ing branch swayed by a sudden gust of the spent 
tempest. He was strangely moved by his mother’s 
words, though the lament had been so often iterated. 
The loyalty to an idea which had led his ancesters 
across wintry seas to settle on the bleak tract of 
land on the New England coast, afterward known 
as the “Richards Farm,’’ was a heritage of his birth 
that held him constant, through the long years, to 
the memory of a girl’s fair face. Yet, unconsciously 
to himself, these years had gradually drawn a veil 
over the loved features, and there were hours when 
his mother’s persistent lamentations roused a vague 
longing for a change in his destiny which he instantly 
repressed, as if it were treason to the dead. 

To-day this yearning grew stronger. As he walked 
on up the hill he felt, with the keenness of a recent 
bereavement, the emptiness of his life, the desolation 
of the future, and as imagination, in cruel contrast, 
held up to view the bright picture of what life might 


S8 LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 

have been had his Lily lived, the strong man almost 
groaned aloud in his pain. At the same instant he 
started violently, then smiled bitterly, muttering: 

“I believe I am growing as nervous as a woman.” 

Something had brushed his cheek like the touch 
of a light hand, and now, caught and whirled aloft 
by the breeze, fluttered before him like a little gray 
bird. 

Abner watched it idly as he walked on. Only a 
scrap of soiled paper, he perceived, looking at it 
more closely, and as it fell on the grass a few feet before 
him he stooped to pick it up, but just atthat instant 
the little torn, muddy sheet, imbued with “the con- 
trariness of inanimate objects” flew upward on the 
wings of another gust and vanished. 

Abner walked on to the crest of the hill where 
stood a mossy old apple-tree, beneath whose boughs 
the young lovers had kept their last tryst on that 
spring evening so many years ago. He passed his 
hand caressingly over the rough trunk as he leaned 
against it, gazing across the wide sweep of country 
now glowing with the rich tints of autumn, at the 
blue sea flashing in the distance — a view for which 
the Richards farm was famed throughout the neigh- 
borhood. 

The wind which had died gently away, again 
swept soughing through the orchard, shaking a 
shower of fruit from the boughs of the old tree. 


CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


89 


Something impaled on a broken twig fluttered from 
a branch just above his head. He smiled as he 
recognized the torn bit of paper that had escaped his 
grasp a few minutes before, and hastil}- snatched it 
just as a stronger gust whirled it from the bough. 
Through the mud be-smearing the paper he saw a 
woman’s dainty handwriting and, opening the sheet, 
glanced down the page. It was evidently a letter. 
“Hilton, Kansas, Oct.”— the date was illegible. He 
turned it, seeking the signature. A quick gasp for 
breath, and his cheeks paled with a thrill of supersti- 
tious awe, as his eyes suddenly rested on the name 
Lily C. 

For an instant it seemed like a message from the 
grave. Then, with a half frown at his own folly, he 
scanned the crumpled sheet more closely. Yes, he 
was right, it was a letter — a pretty, girlish letter 
written to a cousin, full of the simple, every-day hap- 
penings of a Western village. The writer had taken 
a class in the Sunday-school of the Presbyterian 
church a few months before, and related a queer lit- 
tle mistake of one of her small scholars. It closed 
somewhat abruptly. Clouds were gathering, and she 
was in a hurry to take her letter to the post-office 
before the storm. Then came the signature which 
had so startled him— Lily C. 

The years of the past rolled away like a curtain, 
and he again felt the throb with which his heart had 


90 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


greeted that name. How he had prized those letters, 
sweet and shy, like his Lily herself. He had always 
gone into battle with the last one she had written 
buttoned close over his breast, as if it were an 
amulet to ward off peril. How strange that this 
girl in the far off Western town should have signed 
her name in the same way! With the romance latent 
in the reticent New England nature he murmured : 

“It seems as though the old apple-tree had believed 
that a page bearing that signature must be meant 
for me, and grasped it as it flew by like a gray sea- 
gull.» 

Then he began to wonder how the stained sheet 
had found its way to the orchard. “Hillton, 
Kansas 1 “ Where had he lately seen some mention 
of the place ? 

A flash of memory recalled the description of the 
cyclone raging a few days before in Kansas, which 
he had read to his mother. Hillton had suffered 
severely. The post-office had been blown to pieces 
and several lives lost. Perhaps Lily C., like her 
namesake, was already only a name to those who 
had loved her. Was it possible that this letter had 
been borne by the tempest half across the continent 
to fall into the hands of the one man to whom its 
signature brought so many associations of mingled 
joy and sorrow? If it were so, he would take the 
incident for an omen. 


CAUGHT BY A CYCLONB. 


91 


Slowly he retraced his steps down the hill, wonder- 
ing over the strange chance. The superstition which, 
reluctant as we are to acknowledge it, lingers in our 
natures, began to stir, and whispered that the event 
was no mere accident to be passed by unheeded. By 
the time he reached the old farm-house Abner, spite 
of many a misgiving, had resolved upon a plan, and 
the next morning a letter directed in a large, bold 
hand to 

“Miss Lily C., 

“Teacher in Sunday School of Presbyterian Church, 

“ Hillton, 
“Kansas. ’’ 

left New England for the West. 

Its contents were brief. Abnerhad merely described 
the manner in which the torn letter had come into 
his possession and offered, if the writer desired, to 
return it. He felt a strange, unreasonable longing 
to see her name again, and found himself counting 
the days which must intervene ere he could receive a 
reply. 

The expectation seemed to lend new zest to life, 
his movements became more alert, his e3^es sparkled, 
and his mother, quick to perceive any change in her 
only son, murmured as she sat in her neat kitchen 
rocking and knitting: 

“Seems to me ez ef Abner’s steppin’ ’bout a sight 
spryer. He wuz talkin’ a minnit in the church porch 


92 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


last Sabbath to one o’ Farmer Smith’s gals. Libby 
looks sunthin’ like Lily Cobb, too, light haired, only 
not so pale and kinder peaked, praps” — then the 
half littered hope died away in an impatient sigh. 
“Lor’ no, Ae’7/ never be merried ez long’s I’m above 
ground. Mebbe, when he finds himself alone, with 
no woman to do the house-chores and keep things 
tidy, he’ll act like a sensible man at last.” 

While she sw^ayed to and fro in the old wooden 
rocker, talking to herself in the fading light, Abner, 
holding a dainty white envelope postmarked Hillton, 
was hurrying through the orchard. He had a fancy 
that he must read the letter under the boughs of the 
old apple-tree. 

His first glance was at the signature — Lily Cobb! 
A strange feeling of unrealitj'^ stole over him ; for an 
instant the letters swam before his eyes, the familiar 
scene around him vanished — he seemed to see the 
tents of an encampment, the blue uniforms of his 
comrades. But, as he turned back to the first page, 
the formal: 

“Mr. Abner Richards, 

“Dear Sir.” 

steadied his excited nerves, and, by the time he had 
read the few lines thanking him for his courtesy and 
requesting the return of the wandering epistle “to 
be preserved as a memento of the cyclone, ’’the blood 


CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


93 


once more flowed calmly through his veins, and he 
could even scan the signature, noting the little points 
of resemblance and difference between it and those 
other treasured names whose ink had long since 
grown pale. 

That night Abner’s lamp burned late. He had 
resolved to return “the little gray carrier dove” 
without delay, and was laboriously shaping and 
reshaping the sentences in which he asked the favor 
of an acknowledgment that the enclosure had 
reached its destination. The task of composition 
was strangely difiicult. 

At last he completed it; the scraps of torn paper, 
which would have excited his mother’s wonder, were 
carefully destroyed, hnd early the next morning the 
letter was dropped into the mail-bag. 

This time the reply was longer in arriving. Abner 
marveled at the keen disappointment he felt when 
day after day passed without an answer. The dull 
November skies were lowering, the ruddy hues of 
autumn had faded into sober gray, and the trees in 
the apple orchard were leafless, when one morning, 
riding to the post-office through a sudden flurry of 
snow, he received another envelope stamped with 
the Kansas postmark. 

Lily wrote at more length, and in words a shade 
less formal. She had been away from home, and 
apologized for her delay in acknowledging the 


94 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


receipt of his enclosure, “which certainly looked 
travel-stained.” Abner read and reread the lines as 
he rode homeward through the increasing storm, 
and then began to ponder over expedients to secure 
another letter from the girl of whose very existence 
he had been ignorant a month before. 

But, rack his brain as he would, no better plan 
occurred to him at last than to frankly request that 
she would allow him to continue a correspondence 
so oddly begun. When the letter had gone he half 
repented. She would think him presuming; she 
could not know why he was so anxious to retain this 
slender bond of intercourse; she could feel no inter- 
est in him. Yet, spite of his doubts, he constantly 
caught himself numbering the hours that must pass 
ere he could hope to receive a reply. 

The answer came promptly, and to his delight, the 
requevSt was granted. All through the winter 
months letters between the Massachusetts farmer 
and his dead love’s namesake sped steadily to and 
fro, till the postmaster, who, after the manner of his 
kind in sparsely settled communities, kept a close 
watch on the mails in his charge, began to note the 
regular arrival of the square white envelopes directed 
in a woman’s delicate hand to Abner Richards, and 
bearing the Kansas postmark. 

One day, toward the end of February, the receipt 


CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 


95 


of a flat package, addressed in the same manner, fur- 
ther stimulated his curiosity. 

“H’m,”he muttered, “guess Abner’s got a valen- 
tine from his Western sweetheart. Wal, he won’t 
eonie fur it to-day, that’s sartin,” he added, glancing 
out of the window at the whirling flurry of snow- 
flakes and the deep drifts along the road. 

But he had scarcely been engaged five minutes in 
sorting the remainder of the mail, when the door 
was flung open and Abner entered, shaking the 
clinging snow from his back and shoulders as a dog 
scatters a shower of water drops. 

“Here ’tis, Abner!” said the postmaster, holding 
out the parcel. “Guess ye must hev wanted itpurty 
bad to come out in sech a pesky blow ez this.” 

But the expression of the farmer’s face did not 
encourage further facetiousness, and the official, who 
also kept the country “store,” hastily dropped the 
subject and bustled about to put up the list of gro- 
ceries Mrs. Richards had sent by her son. Yet, 
though silenced, the worthy man was all the more 
certain that his surmise was correct, and ere long 
mysterious rumors that Abner Richards would soon 
bring a wife to the farm began to be whispered 
abroad. 

On the evening of the day the pareel had arrived 
Abner entered the kitchen and, holding aphotograph 
before his mother’s eyes, said abruptly : 


96 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“Did you ever see anyone who looked like this?” 

Mrs. Richards took the picture, rubbed her specta- 
cles, replaced them on her nose, and deliberately 
scanned the face before her, — a bright, sweet face, 
with large clear eyes, thick locks of hair clustering 
around a broad forehead, and a mouth singularly 
charming in expression. 

“ Wal, Abner, I dunno ez I do,” she said at last, 
slowly and cautiously. “An’ 3'^et, ef the cheeks wms 
holler instead o’ round, an’ the face more peaked. I’d 
say it favored Lily Cobb. There’s sunthin’ ’bout the 
eyes an’ forrid, on’y in Lily’s day gals wuz more 
sensible an’ did n’t fix their hair in sech a snarl. But 
who is she, Abner, it’s sunthin’ new under the sun 
fur ter be hevin’ gals’ picturs.” 

Her eyes sparkled eagerly. 

“Her name is Lily Cobb too. She lives in Kansas,” 
replied Abner curtly. 

“Kansas? She may be some kin to Lily, then, 
forzino. Her father had a cousin who moved out 
West long ago, before either you or Lily wuz born. 
A smart, likely feller, too ! We used ter keepcomp’ny 
a little, but ’twan’t no use talkin’; the farm had to 
go to a Richards, an’ jest before your father an’ I 
wuz merried he went awaj'. This gal’s his darter, 
mebbe, no she must be his granddarter. Suz! How 
time does fly! But where did ye get her pictur, 
Abner? Is she visitin’ any o’ the Cobbs here? ” 


CAUGHT BY.A CYCLONE. 


97 


Abner hesitated. Standing a little beyond tbe 
circle of light cast by the shaded lamp on the work- 
stand, she could not see the sudden flush that crim- 
soned his face as he said hurriedly, ignoring her ques- 
tion: 

“Mother, you have been urging me for years to 
bring a wife to the farm. What if — I could persuade 
— her namesake” — his faltering voice grew strangely 
gentle — “to come this spring to brighten the old 
place?” 

“Land-sakes, Abner! I’d almost given up hope of 
ever bearin’ sech words from you,” cried his mother, 
her keen eyes glittering with tears. “She’s young 
fur you, of course, but,” she added earnestly, “ef she 
is Hezekiah Cobb’s granddarter, I should say ’twas 
a clear leadin’ of Providence.” 

*«•*****» 

Three months had passed; instead of the feathery 
snow-flakes that had filled the air when Abner 
Richards brought home the photograph, the pink 
petals of the apple-blossoms were drifting from the 
boughs of the trees in the old orchard at every light 
gust of wind that blew. Within the house Mrs. 
Richards was moving busily about, dusting articles 
already spotless, but pausing almost every instant 
to glance out of the window. It was, indeed, a 
gala-day to her— this bright spring morning, for she 


98 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


expected each moment her son and his Western bride 
— Hezekiah Cobb’s granddaughter. 

She heard the sound of wheels, and ere she could 
reach the door Abner was standing on the thresh- 
old, gazing proudly at the pretty, bright-faced girl 
by^ his side, who, in her close-fitting brown traveling 
dress, relieved by a scarlet silk kerchief and scarlet 
feathers in the brown hat, seemed a human proto- 
type of the gay little robin-redbreasts carolingin the 
elm-trees outside the house. 

Mrs. Richards had unconsciously expected to see 
Lily Cobb’s pale complexion and golden hair, but 
the bride’s thick locks were the hue of a ripe chest- 
nut, her round cheeks glowed with health, and her 
gray eyes, fringed with long black lashes, sparkled 
merrily. 

There was an instant’s silence as the two women 
gazed intently at one another, then the young wife 
impulsively stepped forward, and, throwing her arms 
warmly around the stiff, angular figure, asked, in 
clear, sweet tones : 

“Are you glad to see me, mother? 

Mrs. Richards’ worn, wrinkled face softened and 
brightened. “Glad? ” she cried. “Glad to see you, 
child? Why, it’s ben the one wish of my heart to 
see Abner’s wife fur years past countin’. But I’d 
almost given up hopin’ he’d ever be caught by any 
gal on the face o’ the airth. You’re pretty enough, 




CAUGHT BY A CYCLONE. 99 

with your bright eyes an’ red cheeks, to turn the 
head of any man, but Abner — ” 

The bride’s gay laugh interrupted her. “Ah,” she 
cried, “I had nothing to do with it. Abner was 
caught by— a cyclone.” 




AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 









AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


“It’s perfectly useless; the thing is mjhete noire — 
don’t laugh, Elsie, I’m not joking. If there is any 
truth in the talk concerning ‘the contrariness of 
inanimate objects,’ then of all inanimate objects 
that hideous black mantel-piece is the most con- 
trary.” 

Pretty Mrs. Van Schenck threw herself back in her 
chair, gazing with mingled wrath and disgust at the 
object of her animadversion, a high wooden mantel- 
piece, painted black and diversified with various dull 
yellow streaks and spots, fondly imagined by house- 
keepers thirty years ago to be a most faithful imita- 
tion of marble. Fastened across a portion of the 
front, and thence trailing to the floor, hung a strip 
of mummy cloth richly embroidered with a garland 
of poppies, but looking sadly out of keeping as it 
drooped forlornly from the high, narrow shelf it was 
intended to adorn. 

“Now just look there, Elsie. Over and over again 
have I tried to cover, drape, alter that detestable 

lO.H 


104 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


mantel-piece, and each attempt has proved a more 
wretched failure than the last one. I’ve blistered m^^ 
fingers knotting macrame lace, hammered my 
thumbs till they were black and blue, trying all sorts 
of devices suggested by all kinds of people. I really 
did think I should succeed this time, and perhaps if 
the border had been twice as deep it might have 
looked passably; but that narrow strip, midway 
between floor and ceiling, is perfectly ridiculous. 
Grace Alston gave me the pattern. It was lovely on 
her modern mantel-piece. How stupid in me not to 
think of making it wider! I believe the thing is 
bewitched.” 

Here she paused to take breath and, meeting her 
sister’s merry eyes, burst into a ringing laugh. 

“It does seem absurd to rail so, but the whole 
room is spoiled, and it would be so pretty but for 
that frightful old mantel-piece.” 

“I am sure it is lovely as it is. Nothing can spoil 
the beautiful oak floor and wainscot,” replied Elsie 
Horton, glancing around the spacious apartment, 
oblong in shape, lighted by four large windows, two 
on the southern side, overlooking the sparkling 
waters of Long Island Sound, and two facing the 
w«st, where a dense pine wood at no great distance 
from the house — a huge old mansion dating from 
colonial days — shut in the view and gave an impres- 
sion of great seclusion. 


AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


105 


The first glimpse of the room revealed the fact that 
the pretty hostess worshiped at the shrine of dec- 
orative art, though good taste fortunately excluded 
the horrors of scrap vases, bedaubed drain-pipes, 
and spatter-work tidies. Nay, at this moment, 
brightly illumined by the flood of sunshine pouring 
through the southern windows, the apartment 
might have given an artist a suggestion for a most 
charming interior. The floor and richly carved 
wainscot were polished oak, almost black with age; 
handsome Persian rugs lay scattered here and there; 
soft muslin draperies shaded the windows; bits of 
rare old china made spots of bright color.on bracket 
and table; an easel supported a fine old painting; 
and a quaint spindle-legged table, nearly a century 
old, stood in one corner. 

Fit subjects, too, for any artist’s brush, were the 
occupants of the room. Mrs. Van Schenck, dark- 
eyed, dark-haired, and slightly flushed with exertion 
and wrath, formed exactly the right contrast to her 
sister Elsie’s blonde beauty, as the latter leaned care- 
lessly back in a large easy-chair, her white draperies, 
relieved by knots of blue ribbons, sweeping over the 
dark polished oak floor, and her violet eyes spark- 
ling with amusement at her companion’s vivacious 
tirade. 

“I like to listen to you, Kate,” she said at last. 
“It seems to bring back the dear old times before 


106 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


you married to hear you set off on one of those Don 
Quixote tilts against windmills. Now, in the name 
of common sense, let me ask you why, instead of 
blistering your fingers and hammering your thumbs, 
you didn’t have the mantel-piece taken down and 
another one put in its place? You could have had 
something carved to match this beautiful old wain- 
scoting exactly. 

“My dear, that highly sensible suggestion strongly 
reminds me of Marie Antoinette’s equally pertinent 
query : ‘ Why do n’t the poor people eat cake, if they 
can’t get bread?’ You forget that we are not rich 
enough to gratify all our whims, and an oak mantel- 
piece carved to match the wainscot would cost a 
pretty penny, I assure you. If only the original one 
had been left! Harry remembers it perfectly, and 
says people would rave over it now. Great clusters 
of fruits and flowers on the panels, connected by 
drooping wreaths — exquisitely done, too. And they 
split it up and burned it for kindling wood, the 
Goths and Vandals, when this ‘new and elegant* 
monstrosity took its place.” 

“But couldn’t you have the lovely Dutch tiled 
mantel-piece in the dining-room moved here at very 
little expense? ” 

“Oh, my dear, don’t pride yourself on striking out 
a brilliant idea. Did not I suggest that to Harry 
long ago? No, indeed, he won’t have this hideous 


AN IDEA IN decorative ART. 


107 


thing removed, because it was his uncle’s dying wish 
that it should be kept here. I can’t blame him, 
either, dear fellow. Old Mr. Van Schenck, with all 
his eccentricities, was very kind to him, and in his 
will left him his whole fortune, but the wretches who 
murdered him took everything, stocks, bonds, and 
all, — it was one of his peculiarities to keep his prop- 
erty in a portable form, — and the wdll was doubtless 
among the other papers. The law gave Harry the 
house — ” 

“Tell me all about it, Kate,” interrupted Elsie, 
“You know I had only the bare facts while I was 
abroad, none of the particulars, and the three days 
I spent at home before coming down to you — ” 

“Were filled with descriptions of travel, displaying 
your finery, etc. Yes, I know. There isn’t really 
very much to tell; but, ‘to begin at the beginning,’ 
I’ll inform you how my bete noire came to be the 
bane of my life. It seems that thirty years ago old 
Mr. Van Schenck — then a rich bachelor of fifty — fell 
desperately in love with a beautiful girl whose father 
he had befriended. She engaged herself to him, and 
he began to remodel the house to suit her taste, — 
fancy the taste that would destroy a lovely carved 
oak mantel-piece to make way for that monster! — 
when an old lover appeared on the scene; and she, 
probably fearing that her father would force her to 
keep her promise, ran away with him. It was a ter- 


108 


LOKELfil AND OTHER STORIES. 


rible blow to Mr. Van Sclienck, an excessively proud 
man. He stopped the repairs just where the work- 
men happened to be, dismissed all his servants 
except one old woman, and, in spite of the entreaties 
of all his friends and relatives, persisted in living 
alone up to the day of his murder. This was the 
room he always occupied. The bed stood in that 
comer, facing the mantel-piece. The murderers 
entered by one of the western windows, and had 
doubtless been hiding in the wood watching their 
opportunity. His eccentricities were well known in 
the neighborhood, and he was reputed to be 
immensely rich. Only the week before, Harry had 
been here, represented the danger, and begged him at 
least to have a trusty man-servant on the place. He 
obstinately refused, and our next news was a sum- 
mons to his death-bed. My husband arrived a few 
minutes before dusk, and found his uncle still alive, 
but unable to speak; the principal wound was a deep 
gash in the throat. The old man was terribly 
anxious to tell him something, and made a motion 
of writing on the coverlet, but his strength was fail- 
ing, the room was growing dark, and Harry could 
not understand. At last, struggling to a sitting 
position in bed, he pointed to the mantel-piece, 
gasped, ‘Kept, kept,’ then the blood gushed from the 
wound in his throat, and he sank back on the pillows 
-dead.” 


AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


109 


“Horrible! horrible! ” cried Elsie. Poor old man, 
how he must have loved the girl to think, even on 
his death-bed, of preserving the one thing she had 
given him time to prepare in his home for her sake! 
Doesn’t it lend the ugly old mantel-piece a touch of 
romance? No wonder Harry won’t allow it to be 
removed. I should feel as if it were sacrilege.” 

“I don’t want it removed either,” replied Kate 
slowly. “But” — with sudden animation — “how I 
should like to cover it up, every inch of it.” 

Elsie looked at her inquiringly. 

“I’m half ashamed to tell you,” Kate went on, 
lowering her voice, “but I believe I shall actually 
grow afraid of that thing, unless I can find some way 
to change it. Of course it sounds silly enough to 
say so now, sitting here in this broad, bright sun- 
light; but it’s quite another matter when the dusk 
comes stealing in, casting shadows in every corner, 
and the wind howls and shrieks around the old 
house. A week ago I sat yonder at one of the 
windows, watching for Harry, who was a little 
later than usual. It had been a grey, raw, chilly 
day, like a forerunner of November, with one of 
those dreary, moaning winds sighing through the 
trees that always do make me dismal, and I was 
troubled, too, about Harry’s business. I can trust 
you, Elsie, I know of old, so I will tell you the whole 
story. He is on the brink of ruin. Hard times have 


110 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


sorely crippled the old firm into whieh he was admit- 
ted when he married me, and Mr. Van Schenck was 
to have advanced a hundred thousand dollars the 
week he died to carry the house through to the first 
of January. Harry has always reproached himselt 
for his carelessness in discussing the arrangements 
while walking with his uncle in the wood behind the 
house. He thinks the murderers may have over- 
heard them and killed the old man to obtain the 
money, for he was to have delivered it to him the 
day after the murder, and not a trace of that or any 
other property could be found. With this amount 
the firm would have been safe; now it is very 
uncertain whether they can hold out. That’s the 
reason we are obliged to stay here this winter 
instead of going to New York. We must either live 
on the plaee or sell it, — for, since the murder, nobody 
will rent it, — and the old mansion has been in the 
family ever since Long Island was settled, so of 
course Harry won’t part with it until the last cent 
is gone. 

“But to return to the reason I am more than ever 
anxious to alter the old mantel-piece— do n’t laugh at 
me, Elsie! Just a week ago I sat here thinking of 
Harry’s troubled face when he left me in the morning, 
wondering why he was so late, and listening to the 
wind moaning drearily outside, when suddenly I 
fancied I heard a loud, piercing shriek; the windows 


AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


Ill 


rattled violently, the whole house seemed to shake, 
and I heard, yes, I really did hear, the ringing, chink- 
ing sound of coins. The noise appeared to come 
from the mantel-piece. I glanced toward it, and oh! 
Elsie, every one of those horrible streaks and spots, 
instead of being a dull yellow, was the brightest 
crimson; they looked like fresh blood streaming from 
wounds. 

“ J would never have believed I could have been so 
frightened ; if my hair did n't stand on end, it was 
only because my net held it too tight, and for one 
moment I fully expected to see the old man’s ghost 
on the hearth-stone, ready to protect the solitary 
memento of his love, for in my annoyance at my last 
failure to remodel it I had been heartily wishing it 
away. I sprang from my seat and flew out of the 
room. There in the hall stood Harry, who had been 
carried on in the train to the next station, and 
returned home by another way. Luckily it was too 
dark for him to see my white, scared face, and he 
instantly exclaimed: ‘Come quick, Kate, there is 
such a strange effect from the sunset light.’ We went 
down the hall, and he threw the door wide open. I 
saw nothing but the same low, grey clouds, the 
same wan, grey atmosphere that had depressed my 
spirits all day long.” 

” ‘ How strange ! ’ he cried. ‘Just as I reached the 
steps, the clouds suddenly parted in the west and a 


112 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


blood-red light illumined everything; trees, walls, 
stones were crimson in the glow. I rushed in to 
call you, and now it has vanished as instantly as it 
eame. But how pale you look, Kate! Are you ill? ’ 
You may imagine that I felt heartily ashamed of my 
folly. And yet, seold myself as I may, I never can 
be at ease in this room when it begins to grow dusk. 
I always have a horrible fear of seeing those yellow 
spots and streaks suddenl}" turn blood-red again. 
Of course it’s absurd; nobody knows that better 
than I, but I can’t help it.” 

Elsie sat looking thoughtfully at her sister’s bug- 
bear a few minutes, then her blue eyes flashed with 
delight and, clapping her little hands like a child, 
she sprang from her chair, exclaiming, “I have it, 
Kate dear, I have it; just the very idea. We’ll 
change the old mantel-pieee completely without 
using anything but a little paint, and moreover, we 
won’t anger the old man’s ghost by even driving a 
nail into the beloved souvenir of his youth.” 

‘‘Paint ?” asked Kate doubtfully. ‘‘I’m used to 
being helped out of difficulties by your bright ideas, 
Elsie, but I don’t see how paint — ” 

‘‘Don’t you?” interrupted her sister, quickly. 
‘‘Of course not, else it would be j^our idea, not mine. 
Listen quietly, then, to my superior wisdom,” — 
drawing up her pretty figure with an air of mock 
dignity as she spoke,— “and I’ll elucidate. You 


AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


113 


remember the pair of Sorrento brackets I brought 
home, which you admired so much yesterday? ” 

“Yes; but what have they to do with my bug- 
bear ? ” 

“Didn’t you say the inlaid work looked like paint- 
ing?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, then, here is my idea, my brand-new, bright 
idea, ever so much easier to carry out than my wise 
sister’s blistering of fingers and hammering of 
thumbs. You see the long narrow panel over the 
hearth?” 

“Yes.” 

“ And the two oblong panels, one on each side, 
and the little square panels above them ? ” 

“Well, what in the world have they to do with 
Sorrento brackets?” 

“Wait a minute. You see, too, how very deeply 
sunken they are in the woodwork, much deeper than 
I should think necessary, but just the thing for my 
idea. I’ll get very thin pieces of wood to fit over 
them exactly, paint lovely garlands of poppies, corn- 
flowers, and wheat on the long panels, charming 
little bouquets on the square ones, then you can 
have the rest of the wood ebonized, and I assure you 
your ‘bugbear’ will be %r from the least pretty 
thing in your drawing-room. Where’s your yard- 
measure, Kate? ” And in a second her white fingers 


114 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


were deftly taking the dimensions of the various 
panels. 

“The system of modern humbug had begun thirty 
years ago, Kate. This mantel-piece isn’t half so 
substantial as the work put into the old mansion a 
century before. Why ! the central panel is really 
shaky; the wood has warped, I suppose; perhaps it 
rattled a little the other evening and your lively 
imagination made you fancy you heard the chink of 
money.” 

“Perhaps so. I’m ready to admit anything in 
sheer gratitude for being delivered from the sight of 
those horrible streaks and splashes. You’re a jewel 
of a sister, Elsie, and Harry— dear old fellow!— will 
be as delighted as I am. I know he has been on the 
point of telling me a dozen times to have it taken 
away; then the recollection of his uncle’s last words 
stopped him. 7 wouldn’t have had it demolished, 
much as it has tormented me, but your idea will 
make a complete transformation. Yes, it will be 
lovely. I can see it in ‘my mind’s eye’ already.” ' 

“And you shall see it in reality in ten days. I shall 
begin as soon as I get home to-morrow, and work 
like a Trojan to deliver you from your ghostly vis- 
ions. Such a funny thing for jou to be superstitious, 
Kate I” 


AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


115 


“Mrs. Van Schenck to Miss Elsie Horton:— Oh. Elsie, my 
darling, I am the happiest little woman in the world, and all 
through your ‘ idea.’ Let me try whether I can tell the story 
intelligibly, for it all happened scarcely two hours ago, and I sit 
scribbling, while my lord and master, like the king in Mother 
Goose’s rhymes, is ‘counting out his money.’ I really feel giddy 
with the sudden plunge from dread of approaching ruin to the pos- 
session of wealth beyond our dreams ; and just here let me assert 
that I really did hear the chink of money that ghostly afternoon. 

“Harry brought the box of panels down from the city and after 
dinner I pretended I could not wait till to-morrow to try their 
effect, and begged him to open it. I really did so only to divert 
his thoughts from his business cares ; he looked so white and sad, 
poor fellow, that I had little interest enough even in laying my 
ghost. He hesitated a moment, then said : ‘ I have something to 
tell you, Kate ; but it can wait till we have seen Elsie’s pretty 
work.’ He added under his breath, but I caught the words; 
‘ Trouble will come to her soon enough, poor child.’ 

“We easily wrenched off" the lid, and Harry really seemed to for- 
get his worries a moment while admiring the lovely garlands and 
bouquets. I’m so glad you chose morning-glories for the little 
square panels. I never saw anything so perfect as the way you 
have grouped the buds and blossoms. The mantel-piece had been 
painted dead black, as you suggested, so we set to work at once, 
put in the side panels, then the little square panels above them, — 
they fitted exactly, — and, after gazing at the effect a moment, 
tried to slip the center panel into its place. It seemed a little 
tight, and one end sank lower than the other. ‘Will it stand a 
blow, Kate?’ asked Harry. ‘I must crowd this side down a lit- 
tle more to make it even.’ I wrapped the hammer carefully in 
flannel, and gave it to him, saying: ‘First try pushing; it will 
never do to bruise the paint.’ He did so, and suddenly shouted, 
‘ Stand back, Kate, the whole mantel-piece is giving way.’ Before 
the words had left his lips his end of the panel vanished ; mine, 
which I had been holding to steady, swung straight out into the 


116 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES, 


room, and suet a clinking and rattling echoed in m 3 ' ears, as a 
perfect Dana’s shower of gold pieces came rolling down on the 
hearth-rug, glittering and flashing in the lamp-light, while we 
stood enveloped in a cloud of dust, staring into what looked like 
a huge black hole. After a few minutes the shower stopped, and 
we began to look about us. On the hearth with the money lay 
some dusty papers, bonds and stocks, Harry said, and inside the 
black hole were bags of gold coins, one of which had burst open, 
more papers, and among them the missing will. Imagine our 
astonishment, our delight! I can hardly believe it now. It seems 
like a fairy-tale. And oh I the relief to Harry ! He had been try- 
ing all dinner-time to summon up courage to tell me that the firm 
was hopelessly involved, and would be declared bankrupt to-mor- 
row; every resource was exhausted. Think of it, Elsie; a few 
weeks more, and our home would have been sold, the property 
lost to us forever. What a narrow escap>e ! Blessings on decora- 
tive art ! I have been laughing and crying by turns for the last 
half hour, and Harry hasn’t behaved much more sensibly. We’ve 
had a war-dance around my poor old bug-bear. Such a simpleton 
as I was to fancy all sorts of ghostly horrors, and run away 
when the dear ugly old thing rattled its secret in m 3 ' ears with 
ever 3 ' gust of wind that blew ! It shall never be taken away and 
split up for firewood now, that’s certain. What nonsense I. am 
writing! Nevermind; I’ve felt little inclination for nonsense dur 
ing the last few months. I have a right to indulge myself in it 
now. Poor Mr. Van Schenck ! He tried so hard to tell Harry the 
secret. He had had a safe for silver built in the wall when the 
mantel-piece was put up, and afterward used it for his valuables. 
A spring hidden in the central panel opened it. 1 wonder you did 
not find it when you were taking the measure and spoke of its 
being shaky. Do you remember? Harry has finished ‘counting 
out his money’ and authoritatively orders me to bed, saying it is 
long past midnight, and no proper hour for anybody but ghosts 
to be abroad; so unless I mean my letter to be like Tennyson’s 
brook and ‘ go on forever ’ I am to close it at once. Like a good 


AN IDEA IN DECORATIVE ART. 


117 


wife, I obey. I am too happy to be anything but dutiful. Shall 1 
confess that I took a base advantage of the opportunity, and 
asked my liege lord a short time ago what he thought of my 
‘ hobby ’ — as he calls decorative art — now. His answer I need not 
record ; suffice it to say it was perfectly satisfactory. Good-night, 
my darling ; I can’t find words to express my gratitude, but if a 
pair of solitaire diamond earrings as bright as your idea — 
Another warning from Harry; now I really must stop. 

“ Your loving sister, 


“Kate.” 




















• • 





TEA ROSES. 


k 


« 


« 


f 



w • 














TEA ROSES. 


Impossible. It’s no use even to think of it.” 

^‘And why, Mabel?” 

” Why ? It makes me half angry — if I ever could be 
angry with you, Prudence — to hear you ask such an 
absurd question. The idea of my going to spend a 
fortnight at Aunt Van Arsdell’s ‘cottage by the sea’ 
— ^for cottage read palace — with my large and varied 
wardrobe of two calico suits, a twelve cent lawn 
and a black silk, the latter not even in its first 
youth.” 

Prudence sighed faintly, then glanced at her sister 
and took heart of grace again. After all, what mat- 
tered twelve cent lawns and black silks past their 
prime— at least in the eyes of the masculine portion 
of humanity — when their owner rejoiced in the pos- 
session of such a wealth of wavy chestnut hair, with 
gleams of gold shimmering through it, such a snowy 
skin and radiant brown eyes ? Then the lithe, slen- 
der young figure — its exquisite curves w’ould lend an 

air of elegance to the simplest attire. No, no, her 
121 


122 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


pet must not lose this one opportunity to have a 
glimpse of the gay world, the world that’ looks so 
bright and fair when one is young and happy, albeit 
pennies may be but scanty in the purse. How well 
she remembered her own last visit to Aunt Van 
Arsdell, the summer she was herself nineteen, ten 
long years ago. No difficulties about a wardrobe 
then! Plenty of dainty dresses from the best New 
York modistes, to set off the fair young beauty’s 
charms. Yes, at' nineteen Prudence had been a 
beauty, too, tall, fair and stately, with laughing 
brown eyes like May’s, an inheritance from their 
mother; but care and grief had lined the smooth, 
fair brow, sharpened the delicate features, and given 
a sorrowful droop to the corners of the lovely 
mouth. Ten years of school-teaching are no pre- 
servative of beauty, especially when to these duties 
is added the nursing of a helpless invalid. 

Three years had passed since gentle Mrs. Monroe’s 
death, ten since her husband’s failure had closed the 
doors of their luxurious home, and sent them to find 
a shelter in this cottage in one of the Connecticut 
towns. It had been an honorable failure, and the 
ruined man, after settling his loved ones in their new 
abode, sailed for South America, to try to retrieve 
his shattered fortunes, but alas, in a ship that never 
reached earthly port. 


TEA ROSES. 


123 


Yet these ten years of care and toil would not have 
lined the smooth, fair brow so deeply had it not been 
for a sad secret hidden deep in Prudence’s heart and 
carefully concealed from the invalid mother, to whose 
burden of trouble she would not add a feather’s 
weight. Even now at the mention of Mrs. Van 
Arsdell’s name it caused a sharp pang, for during 
that visit Prudence had lived under the spell of 
love’s glamor, in the “light that never was on sea or 
shore,” and all these weary years had been unable to 
efface the memory. 

Mabel, fancying that the momentary pause was 
devoted to pondering over wa3's and means to pro- 
cure her the coveted pleasure, eagerly exclaimed: 

“Never mind, Prue, it is harder to solve than any 
problem in Euclid! I won’t have you vex your poor 
dear brains about it — in vacation, too. Aunt Van 
Arsdell ought to have sent the wherewithal for a 
wardrobe, if she had really wanted me, and I don’t 
care about going — much.” The last word was 
extorted by the girl’s innate truthfulness, for the 
thought of a visit to Crag Cottage was a dazzling 
vision in the monotomous routine of her daily life. 

“Let us think about the wardrobe, May; perhaps, 
after all, it won’t be so impossible to manage.” 

“Oh! Prue, I’ve seen you work many a miracle in 
the dress-making line, but if you can ‘evoke from 
your inner consciousness ’ a suitable outfit for Crag 


124 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Cottage, with only five dollars to draw upon, I shall 
think you a direct descendant of Cinderella’s fairy 
godmother.” 

“Or an attentive reader of fashion magazines. 
But come, let us put on our considering caps. In the 
first place, your two calico suits are both fresh and 
neatly made; they will answer capitally for morning 
dresses.” 

Mabel nodded assent. 

“Your lawn, with flowers at the throat and belt — 
you can alwa3\s get plenty of hot-house blossoms at 
Aunt Van Arsdell’s — will be pretty to wear at home 
on warm afternoons.” 

“Yes,” interrupted May, “but a bathing-suit and 
a dress for lawn tennis and a suit to wear driving, 
or on the beach when it’s cold, and something that 
might do duty at a dance, and a traveling dress. 
Ah ! Prue, unless you were the fairy godmother her- 
self you could never make five dollars buy all 
those.” 

“I don’t expect to do so, dear. I intend to have 
recourse to the ‘shreds and patches, ’ as you irrev- 
erently call them.” 

“But, Prue, everything we possess has been turned 
upside down and inside out, till there’s absolutely 
nothing left. Oh ! it’s no use to worry our brains in 
trying to accomplish impossibilities. Better decline 
the invitation at once.” 


TEA ROSES. 


125 


“Not just yet, Mabel, it will do no barm to talk 
the matter over a little. The morning dresses are 
provided; now for the traveling suit. The gray one 
you had last summer — ” 

“Is stained on the skirt and the waist is com- 
pletely worn out.’* 

“And mine? ” 

“Oh, Prue! Ever so much worse. Don’t you 
remember the skirt was burned when the student 
lamp upset last year? Neither of them is in a wear- 
able condition.” 

“ But if we put both together? Combinations of 
stripes and plain material are fashionable now. The 
darker stripe of your dress is the same shade as the 
plain gray of mine. We’ll use your skirt with 
my waist, trimmed with a row of narrow grey braid 
and presto — a neat traveling dress.” 

“Why, so it will be, Prue. I should never have 
thought of it.” 

“Next comes the suit to wear driving and cold days 
on the beach. I think a cream-white flannel would 
be the very thing.” 

Mabel gave a little gasp of dismay. 

“A cream-white flannel! Why, Prue, are you 
crazy? — and five dollars to buy it with! Why don’t 
you remember the poor old, faded, stained navy blue 
one, hanging forlornly in the attic, cost ten before 
the scissors touched it. How we planned and con- 


126 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


trived to get it! Do you remember? And ob, Prue, 
how pretty you looked in it the first Sunday it was 
finished! ” 

“Well, Mabel, dear, the fairy godmother intends 
converting the poor faded old blue, which has done 
such good service in its day, into a dainty cream- 
white suit, with pretty pearl buttons and — 

She was interrupted by an impetuous embrace. 
“Fairy godmother! Why, the fair\' godmother was 
nothing to you. What is changing a pumpkin and 
rats into a chariot and horses compared with get- 
ting up a fashionable wardrobe out of nothing at 
all.” 

“Ah! my dear, I always tell you not to despise 
the shreds and patches. Doesn’t the prospect look 
a little more encouraging now? ” 

“Indeedit does; I should n’t be surprised to see you 
wave your yard stick in lieu of a wand, and evoke a 
superb satin ball dress, trimmed with point lace.” 

“I am afraid my magic powers hardly extend so 
far, dear, and if they did, I don’t think the costume 
would suit my May half so well as the one I mean to 
buy; yes, actually buy, out of our treasured five dol- 
lars.” 

“Out of our treasured five dollars ! Do you expect 
to have anything left ? ” 

“Certainly, my pet, just four.” Then, after a 
merry laugh at May’s look of utter amazement, she 


TEA ROSES. 


127 


continued: “Twenty yards of cheese cloth, at five 
cents a yard, will make a lovely evening dress, setoff 
by clusters of natural flowers, of which, as I told 
you, there is never any lack at Aunt Van Arsdell’s.” 

“Yes, but Prue, how are you going to manage the 
flannel? That dark blue can never be dyed white.” 

“No, dear, but it can be bleached. So now run 
and bring the shreds and patches; we’ll begin to rip 
at once.” 

Off flew Mabel, and in five minutes time the two 
sisters were busily engaged in ripping a pile of most 
unpromising looking garments, the “shreds and 
patches ” which were to form the wardrobe for a 
visit at a fashionable country seat. 

The work proceeded silently for half an hour; then 
Mabel suddenly exclaimed : 

“Oh! Prue, you’ve forgotten the bathing suit, and 
there’s certainly nothing left to make one. The attic 
is as bare as ‘Mother Hubbard’s’ cupboard when 
she went ‘to give her poor dog a bone,’ So, unless 
you mean to rip the mattresses, and contrive a suit 
out of the ticking, to which I shall most surel}’’ 
object, for I don’t think it would be pleasant to ‘lie 
on straw’ like another of the ‘Mother Goose’ 
heroines, I don’t see where it’s to come from.” 

Prue joined in her ringing laugh. “No, dear, I 
don’t think we can sacrifice the mattresses to 
the requirements of your wardrobe, and confess I 


128 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


don’t quite see my way to the bathing suit. Per- 
haps I may yet, though.” 

“No, you won’t, Prue, for even the ‘shreds and 
patches’ are exhausted. After your wonderful com- 
binations are arranged there will be absolutely 
nothing left but the four rows of knife plaiting, two 
blue and two gray, that trimmed the under-skirts of 
your dresses, and certainly no bathing suit can be 
evoked from them.” 

A short silence, interrupted by an exclamation 
from Prue. “Yes it can, yes it can, May! This time 
I am proud of my inventive genius. True, it will be 
literally shreds and patches, but no matter for that, 
Pll take the knife plaitings, press them flat, sew 
them together — no trouble on the machine — and you 
shall have a tunic of wide blue and gra^-^ stripes, and 
by way of variety, the Turkish trousers shall be of 
the narrower knife plaiting on the overskirt and 
sleeves. Very novel and effective it will be, you’ll 
see. We can get bits enough of the flannel for a 
sailor collar and cuffs, and you can put anchors in 
the corners.” 

Here both sisters dropped their work a moment to 
have a laugh over Prue’s new device, then the nimble 
fingers began to fly again. 

Three weeks later the wardrobe was com- 
pleted, the black silk, whose frayed satin vest 
and bands gave it an air of shabbiness, rejuve- 


TEA ROSES. 


129 


iiated by concealing them beneath tussore silk, 
on whose ecru ground scarlet poppies and 
blue cornflowers had been embroidered by Mabel’s 
deft fingers. The trunk was packed and strapped, 
the neat gray traveling suit donned, and the two 
sisters stood in the porch of the little cottage, under 
the shadow of the dancing vine leaves, exchanging 
their farewells for the first separation since Prudence, 
with life lying fair before her in the sunlight of youth, 
health and beauty, had gone out to meet her fate at 
Aunt Van Arsdell’s summer home. The memory of 
that day stung her sharply now, and a strange 
dread stole over her, a half-formed wish that she 
had acquiesced in Mabel’s belief in the impossibility 
of the visit. Perhaps this glimpse of the gay world 
would render her discontented with their simple 
life — perhaps instead of the bright, sweet girl now 
leaving her, with pleasure dancing in her happy eyes, 
there might return a broken-spirited woman. The 
next instant she reproached herself for her misgiv- 
ings. No, she would give Mabel all the enjoyment 
it was in her power to procure, and trust her darling 
to Providence for the rest. 

Fifteen minutes more, and the last embrace 
exchanged, the train was speeding out of the sta- 
tion, bearing May on through the bright sunshine 
toward Crag Cottage. The shadows had grown 
very long, and the sun was low in the west, when it 

9 


130 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


left her standing on the platform of a small wooden 
depot, watching it with somewhat wistful eyes, for 
with the evening twilight just the faintest shade of 
homesickness was stealing into the young girl’s 
heart. 

Half a dozen elegant carriages were drawn up 
near the little station, friends were eagerly exchang- 
ing greetings, but May saw no one who in the least 
resembled Mrs. Van Arsdell. Many a glance 
wandered toward the young girl’s slender, graceful 
figure, elegant even in the simple traveling dress, 
but no one came forward to offer a word of welcome; 
she seemed to have been entirely forgotten. At last, 
as the various groups were dispersing, a stylish 
ecjuipage dashed swiftly up the road, and a liveried 
footman springing down approached May. 

“Is this Miss Monroe?’’ he asked, touching his 
hat, and scarcely waiting for her answer, told her 
that Mrs. Van Arsdell was detained at home, — she 
had invited dinner company for that day. “Your 
checks, please. Miss,” he added. Then the carriage 
door was opened, and an instant after May was 
rolling along the smooth road, between fields of 
waving grain. A sudden turn and the broad blue 
ocean, flecked with countless white sails, glowing 
crimson in the sunset light, lay before her. Five 
minutes later the carriage reached a broad avenue, 
lined with trees, through which an occasional 


131 


glimpse was obtained of a large villa, with broad 
piazzas and a profusion of balconies. Bedsof bright- 
hued flowers dotted the smoothly-shaven lawn, and 
numberless hanging baskets and striped awnings 
gave the mansion, despite its size, an air of 
coziness. 

Not a human being, however, appeared, and May, 
with a sinking heart, sprang out of the carriage and 
ran up the flight of steps leading to the piazza. Just 
as she reached it, the figure of a tall, portly lady, a 
lady of the overpowering type, advanced toward 
her, gazed critically at the young girl’s lovely face, 
then unconsciously nodded approvingly, and gave 
her a welcome whose warmth left nothing to be 
desired. Leading the way up stairs, she opened the 
door of a charming room, whose rose-colored 
draperies were softened by clouds of white lace. 

“There, my dear, I will have your trunk brought 
up at once, that you may change your dress immedi- 
ately. I am expecting two gentlemen to dine, and 
you have only half an hour. Would a^ou like any 
help? I can send my maid to you; Louise has excel- 
lent taste.” 

Mabel eagerly assured her aunt that she needed no 
assistance, and Mrs. Van Arsdell withdrew to receive 
her guests. Half an hour later, just as dinner was 
announced, a graceful figure in an airy white dress, 
relieved at the throat and waist by clusters of scar- 


132 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


let roses, came gliding into the soft summer dusk of 
the drawing room. Prue was right, neither of the 
two gentlemen whom Mrs, Van Arsdell presented to 
“my niece. Miss Monroe,” gave a thought to the 
cost of the white robe that set off the delicate grace 
of the lithe, girlish figure, or saw that pretty Mabel 
wore no ornaments, save the scarlet roses and the 
quick blushes coming and going in her fair young 
face. 

Mrs. Van Arsdell, born match-maker that she was, 
noted the effect produced on the millionaire, Mr. 
Montresor, with secret satisfaction. She had just 
successfully married off her third daughter, Edith, 
when this great match — a handsome man of forty, 
who had just returned from the East Indies with a 
fabulous fortune — rose on the horizon of the gay 
watering-place where she had built her summer resi- 
dence. If the truth must be told, she even feltalittle 
regret that Edith’s fate was settled, much as shehad 
previously congratulated herself on her skill in win- 
ning for her daughter the parti of the preceding win- 
ter. Later, when she noticed that none of the fash- 
ionable city belles who smiled so sweetly upon the 
new comer appeared to win any hold upon his heart, 
though he drove with one, rode with another, and 
invited a third to preside at the dinner parties he 
frequently gave on his beautiful yacht, the Sea Bird, 
she suddenly remembered her dead brother’s little 


TEA ROSES. 


133 


girl, Mabel. She must be a young lady now, and 
the child, when she last saw her, had given promise 
of beauty. Why not send for her and see what time 
might bring forth. Since the millionaire could not 
be secured for her own daughter, it was the next 
best thing to have his wealth in the family. Ah! 
well, she could but try. Mabel was the only one to 
plan for now; it would be utter folly to invite 
Prudence with any design on the millionaire’s heart. 
Matrimonial plans for a faded woman of twenty- 
nine were absurd. A pity that she should have been 
obliged to waste her youth so — she was so lovely, so 
stylish at nineteen — but, after all, it was her own 
fault. Mrs. Van Arsdell had selected a brilliant 
parti for her during her last visit to Crag Cottage, 
a match almost as good as Mr. Montresor, and the 
silly girl had fallen in love with penniless Paul 
Carrol instead. By the way, what had become of 
the young fellow? She had not seen him since that 
summer, and to tell the truth, scarcely thought of 
him till now. She had had no patience with 
Prudence’s folly. What if Mr. Benning were fifty, 
bald, and a little irritable. All rich men had their 
whims, and if Prue had followed her advice and 
married him, she would now have been a wealthy 
widow, with everything to enjoy. A rich widow of 
twenty-nine was still young in the world’s eyes. 
Well, Mabel had tried poverty and would be more 


134 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIHS. 


eager for a wealthy husband ; surely there could not 
be two girls in the same family so insane. 

So Mabel was sent for, and if the first glimpse of 
her in her simple gray traveling dress had put to 
rout all fears of finding her a pretty country dowdy, 
the vision of the lovely girl entering the drawing- 
room with such quiet, graceful ease, onW the swift 
blushes betraying a shyness that merely heightened 
the charm of her beauty, made Mrs. Van Arsdell con- 
gratulate herself on her forethought, and indulge in 
pleasing visions of Mabel’s future gratitude, while 
reigning, by virtue of Mr. Montresor’s wealth, one 
of the queens of New York society, when she suddenly 
roused herself from her momentary forgetfulness of 
time and place, for Mr. Montresor was offering his 
arm to take her to the dining-room, and there stood 
handsome Roy Alston, with Mabel ready to follow. 
Of course this was the proper arrangement — themost 
distinguished guest should escort the hostess; still, 
had she not allowed her thoughts to go straying 
into the almost forgotten past, sbe would have 
changed the order, and even for the short transit to 
the dining-room, given May to the man she had 
already chosen to accompany her through life. 

The elegant apartment, with the cozy round table, 
decked with delicate china, cut glass and glittering 
silver, recalled to Mabel the happy days of her child- 
hood. Her spirits rose and her brown eyes sparkled 


TEA ROSES. 


136 


with pleasure as she took her part in the conversa- 
tion, Mrs. Yan Arsdell noted that she turned more 
frequently toward Roy Alston, a young lieutenant 
in the navy, the son of an old friend, but attributed 
it to a little natural shyness which made the girl at 
first stand in awe of the older, graver gentleman. 
No doubt the contrast between May and the gay 
belles who so eagerly vied with each other in claim- 
ing his attention would but lend her one charm the 
more, and the experienced lady was well satisfied 
with the result of her first move in the game, when 
on taking leave, two hours later, Mr. Montresor, 
bowing over her hand, congratulated her on the 
possession of so charming a visitor, and hoped, if 
Miss Monroe liked yachting, the ladies would often 
favor him with their presence in the Sea Bird. 

Perhaps her content would have been less entire, if 
she had heard Roy Alston, standing with May a few 
paces behind her, under the tremulous shadow of the 
vines, murmur hurriedly in reply to a remark of the 
young girl concerning the beauty of the place. 

“Yes, Miss Monroe, and as I have only a short 
time remaining of my leave of absence, will you let 
me show you to-morrow some of the prettiest spots 
I have discovered along the shore? ” 

The light was not too faint for the young sailor to 
see the flush that crimsoned what he already 
mentally declared “the sweetest face in all the 


136 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


world,” or the shining of the shy, brown eyes lifted 
for an instant to his, as MaA' accepted the invitation 
and turned to receive Mr. Montresor’s farewell. 

The two ladies lingered a moment on the wide 
piazza, and then entered the house. Mrs. Van 
Arsdell, in the excess of her satisfaction, put her arm 
around her 3'oung niece and kissed her aftectionatel}'. 

“Mr. Montresor has just been congratulating me 
on having so charming a visitor. May. He is 
immensely wealth}’-, and has a beautiful yacht here, 
in which he hopes to take 3’ou out, if you enjoy sail- 
ing.” 

“Yes, indeed, aunt, that would be delightful? 
Y’our friends are so kind. Mr. Alston has just offered 
to show me some pretty places he has discovered 
along the beach. He is to call at eleven to-morrow 
morning, if it will not interfere with any of your 
plans.” 

Mrs. Van Arsdell was too shrewd a woman to 
show any outward tokens of dissatisfaction and 
merely replied : 

“Oh! no, dear. Roy is a pleasant young fellow, 
and no doubt you will enjoy the ramble. He took 
his farewell dinner here to-night, because he goes to 
New York to-morrow to spend the last fortnight of 
his leave of absence. You will not have much time 
for your stroll, however. We shall lunch at half- 
past twelve, and afterward I want you to drive 


137 


with me;” and innocent May, as she said good- 
night, never dreamed that Mrs. Van Arsdell had 
changed her lunch hour from two to half-past 
twelve at the precise moment she heard of the young 
officer’s invitation. 

‘‘Very little mischief can be accomplished in an 
hour and a half,” the worthy lad}'- said to herself, 
while her maid was undressing her, “and he told me 
he was going to New York to-morrow. That was 
why I selected him to make the fourth at our dinner. 
It would have been too marked to invite Mr. 
Montresor alone.” 

Alas for Mrs. Van Arsdell’s calculations! That 
stroll of an hour and a half at Mabel’s side over the 
golden sands, with the wide ocean flashing and 
sparkling in the sunlight at their feet, and the sea- 
birds wheeling overhead, was enough to make the 
impetuous young sailor resolve that it would be far 
pleasanter to spend the last fortnight of his stay in 
his present quarters than to carry out his first plan 
of visiting relatives on the Hudson. He could run 
up and bid them good-bye before joining his ship. 
And Mabel, with the ready free-masonry of youth, 
already felt perfectly at home with her gay compan- 
ion, and spite of the secluded life with her sister, 
which had rendered her far less versed in such mat- 
ters than most girls of her age, was by no means 


138 


LORELIil AND OTHER STORIES. 


unconscious of the eager admiration expressed in 
every look that met her own. 

Mrs. Van Arsdell, watching the pair, as, punctually 
at half-past twelve, they came slowly up the winding 
avenue, saw enough to make her decide not to invite 
her old friend’s son to lunch, as she had at first 
intended, and while graciously thanking him for his 
courtesy in showing the beauties of the beach to 
May, cleverly contrived to mention a formidable 
number of plans she had herself arranged for her 
niece’s amusement, quite sufiicient to fill the coming 
four or five days. 

Roy Alston, despite his youth, was too familiar 
with the world’s ways not to perceive the lady’s real 
design beneath all her seeming kindness of manner, 
and his gray eyes rested keenly on her face as he said 
quietly : 

“I hope I may be permitted to assist you in mak- 
ing the time pass pleasantly, if my services can be 
useful in any way. I have decided to spend the 
remaining weeks of my leave here, instead of going 
up the Hudson, as I intended yesterday — before I met 
Miss Monroe.” 

There was just the slightest pause before the last 
sentence, just the faintest emphasis on the words, 
but they spoke volumes to Mrs. Van Arsdell. She 
looked up, and for an instant their e3'^es met, then 
Roy bowed and turned away, murmuring under his 


TEA ROSES. 


139 


breath, “At least I won’t be a hypocrite; I have 
given her warning, now — all’s fair in love and war.” 

Day after day of glorious weather followed, and 
everyone seemed determined to live in the open air. 
Drives, rides, lawn-tennis, archery and yachting filled 
the hours, which were one long continued struggle 
between Mrs. Van Arsdell and Roy Alston, a cotitest 
yet concealed from May, whose brown eyes grew 
more radiant, the color in her soft cheek brighter 
with each passing hour. Mrs. Van Arsdell had the 
advantage in this silent battle; the seat in her car- 
riage on a drive, the place next May at a picnic, or 
on the piazza in the glorious moonlight nights were 
reserved for Mr. Montresor, but she could not shut 
her doors on her old friend’s son, could not forbid 
him to call in the evening and sometimes find his 
way to a chair on May’s other side, or prevent him 
from being included in invitations to archery, lawn- 
tennis or picnic parties; for Roy Alston, with his 
handsome face and winning manners, was a general 
favorite. 

Mr. Montresor was evidently charmed with 
Mabel’s bright beauty, and as the young girl herself 
treated him with her usual graceful cordiality, Mrs. 
Van Arsdell was well satisfied with the progress of 
affairs. Fortunately, the young officer’s leave of 
absence would expire in four days, so if she could 
keep matters as they were at present, and above all 


140 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


avoid the danger of a tete-a-tHe farewell between 
Mabel and Roy, she saw no eause for anxiety. Meair 
time, however, she had allowed no opportunity to 
pass without a quiet word of praise for Mr. 
Montresor’s looks or manners, the life of luxury 
awaiting the woman he might ehoose to wed, fol- 
lowed by regrets that May and Prudence must 
spend their days in the monotonous routine of 
school-teaching. 

Only two more days of Roy Alston’s leave of 
absence remained, and Mrs. Van Arsdell, leaning 
comfortably back in a large arm-chair in her luxuri- 
ous bed-chamber, was enjoying the fresh morning 
breeze and congratulating herself that the irksome 
task of constant espionage would soon be over. 
Perhaps she had really been unnecessarily cautious. 
May was such a child still, that she doubtless 
scarcely understood her own feelings, but to the 
prudent aunt there were danger signals in the quick 
blushes that came and went in the fair cheeks, the 
frequent veiling of the brown eyes by their long 
lashes, when Roy Alston was by her side. Mrs. Van 
Arsdell would have been far better satisfied if she had 
met his glance as frankly, jested with him as gaily as 
was her custom with Mr. Montresor. She might 
now be at ease, however. Mr. Montresor had 
invited Mabel to drive with him at two o’clock that 
afternoon. A trifle in itself, perhaps, but rendered 


TEA ROSES. 


141 


significant by the manner in wliich he had come to 
the aunt and told her of his intention to drive Miss 
Monroe to the glen if she had no objection. Then, 
as they stood alone together, he had eloquently 
praised the girl’s beauty and sweetness, adding- 
“She has the loveliest eyes I ever saw — except in one 
face.” 

Perhaps Mabel reminded him of someone who had 
once been dear to him — a dead wife, perhaps, though 
no one knew that he was a widower. No matter, if 
she only won him, the secret of the charm mattered 
little. She would make the prettiest bride of the 
season, and should have the handsomest trousseau 
that could be made in New York. Mrs. Van Arsdell 
could afford to be liberal, since her nieces would make 
no further demands upon her purse; she thought 
with a pang of self-reproach very unusual to her self- 
satisfied mind how little assistance that purse had 
been to them during the struggles of the past ten 
years. 

Suddenly the low murmur of voices rising from the 
piazza below, where she had left Mabel arranging 
some flowers, rudely disturbed her pleasant reverie. 
She recognized Roy Alston’s musical tones, and with 
an angry sense of having been carelessly negligent, 
started up. How long had he been there ? She had 
a vague consciousness that that low murmur had 
mingled unnoticed with her train of thought for 


142 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


some time. Perhaps this one half-hour’s indolence 
liad undone the watchfulness of thelast twelve days. 
With a quicker step than usual she hastened down 
the staircase and uttered a sigh of relief as she per- 
ceived the pair. 

“Thank heaven, it’s not too late yet,” she mur- 
mured under her breath, “but I’m not a moment too 
soon.” 

A pretty picture the young couple made, had she 
been in the mood to appreciate it, seen through the 
vista of the long drawing-room, with the blue sea, 
dotted here and there with the white sails of a fish- 
ing fleet, sparkling beyond in the morning sunlight. 
Mabel, her lap heaped with roses of every hue, sat 
in a low, rustic chair on the wide piazza, and Roy 
leaned against a pillar by her side. The snatch of 
conversation that had relieved Mrs. Van Arsdell’s 
fears was short. 

May’s voice reached her first. “Are not these 
roses beautiful, Mr. Alston?” 

“The fairest I ever saw. Will you give me one? 
They are the flowers of love, you know,” he added, 
lowering his voice, in a tone which crimsoned May’s 
cheek with roses as bright as any that gleamed in 
the heap of fragrant blossoms before her. Her long 
lashes drooped shyly, but choosing a lovely half- 
blown Jacqueminot bud, she held it out to the young 
officer. 


TEA ROSES. 


143 


He eagerly elasped both hand and flower, the fate- 
ful words were trembling on his lips, when Mrs. Van 
Arsdell swept out upon the piazza, saying calmly : 

“A lovely morning, Roy. You are an early 
visitor.” 

“I thought I might rely on your kindness to over- 
look my violation of etiquette in coming so long 
before calling hours. Walking on the beach, I 
chanced to see Miss Monroe here with her roses, and 
could not resist the temptation of joining her.” 

“You are always a welcome visitor,” rejoined 
Mrs. Van Arsdell, unusually affable in her relief at 
finding her negligence had produced no serious 
results. “I hope you intend to join the party in Mr. 
Montresor’s yacht this evening. We shall have a 
charming moonlight sail.” 

“If a thunder gust doesn’t interrupt it,” replied 
the young officer, glancing sea-ward, where some 
light “cotton-wool” clouds were drifting on the 
horizon. 

A few more commonplace remarks followed, then 
Roy, perceiving that, linger as he might, there was 
no chance of securing a moment alone with May to 
whisper the words he was longing to utter, took his 
leave and strode homeward down the long avenue, 
mentally anathemizing Mrs. Van Arsdell in no 
measured terms. That stately lady watclied him 
with much secret satisfaction, which, however, was 


144 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


just a little disturbed by the sight of May bending 
forward over her roses and gazing after the retreat- 
ing figure with an expression in her brown eyes that 
her shrewd aunt was by no means slow to read. 

“Roy is a fine young fellow,” she said carelessly. 
“He has been a great favorite here all the season — 
though he would flirt with every pretty girl he met. 
Grace Schuyler was the last before you came; he was 
really devoted to her. Many people thought it 
would be an engagement, but I knew better. Roy 
has nothing but his pay in the navy, and of course 
he cannot marry on that. No, no, he just carries 
out the old proverb about the ‘sailor who has a love 
in every port.’ If young girls are so foolish as to 
believe all the pretty speeches- he makes, it is 
their own fault.” 

A side glance at Mabel showed that every trace of 
color had vanished from the young girl’s cheek. 
Mrs. Van Arsdell hesitated a moment. Should she 
say more? Perhaps matters had gone further than 
she thought. 

There was an instant’s silence. May, with eyes 
half dimmed by tears and a strange, choking sensa- 
tion in her throat, was gazing off at the white sails 
on the sea. How could she have been so foolish as 
to suppose the looks and words she had dreamed 
over each night in her pretty rose-colored room, had 
any special meaning! Of course it was only her 


TEA ROSES. 


145 


ignorance of society, her silly vanity which had made 
her think so! Roy Alston, who had seen so man 3 ’' 
elegant women, fall in love with a little country 
girl! No doubt Aunt Van Arsdell had noticed her 
folly and in this delicate way wished to warn her 
before she made herself ridiculous. A flush of shame 
crimsoned the very roots of her hair. And Roy 
Alston! What if he had seen it too! A feeling of 
intense humiliation overpowered her, the blood 
poured still more hotW in her veins, the white sails 
swam mistily before her eyes, a longing to escape 
ere a flood of tears betrayed the absurdity of whieh 
she had been guilty took possession of her, and say- 
ing hastily: 

“1 have to mend my dress a little before I go to 
drive with Mr. Montresor, aunt,” she fairly ran 
up stairs, strewing the scarlet roses over the inlaid 
floors. 

Once safely locked in her room she gave way to 

a passion of tears and sobs, which at last cleared her 

brain and enabled her to think more calmly. The 

sunshine seemed to have suddenly vanished from the 

world that had been bright and fair as fairyland 

an hour ago, but at least no one should ever know 

her folly ; her pride would help her there. She would 

conquer this ridiculous habit of blushing whenever 

Roy Alston spoke to her, receive his “pretty 

speeches ” as thev were meant. Oh! what a simple 
10 


14,6 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


little fool she must have appeared in his e^xs! Ah! 
well, they would meet to-night on Mr, Montresor’s 
yacht, some opportunity might occur — Mr. 
Montresor. A new idea suddenly darted through 
her brain. He was always ready to show her atten- 
tion, she would receive it more cordially — that 
would be the surest way to show not only Alston, 
but all the gay circle who had perhaps been laugh- 
ing at the little country girl’s vanity, that she had 
not been so foolish as they supposed. 

A few hours later when Mabel came down, dressed 
for the drive, even Mrs. Van Arsdell’s critical eyes 
were satisfied. The creamy white flannel suit, with 
its jaunty little jacket, displayed the perfection of 
the slender graceful young figure, and the rough 
straw hat, lined with shirred white muslin, and 
caught on one side by a bouquet of field flowers lent 
exactly the touch of color necessary to relieve the 
costume. The sweet face had lost its sea-shell tints, 
but the slight pallor only rendered the exquisite 
purity of complexion more conspicuous. 

“Take my white pongee sun-umbrella. May; that 
IS all your dress requires to make it perfect,” and 
Mrs. Van Arsdell drew the j^oung girl toward her 
and kissed her affectionately, for her conscience 
pricked a little at the sight of the fair, pale face. 
But the momentary touch of compunction swiftly 
vanished as Mr. Montresor drove up theavenue, and 


TEA ROSES. 


147 


after inviting him to dine, she stood watching the 
retreating equipage, murmuring: “Far better to 
put that nonsense out of her head at once; she’ll be 
grateful to me some day. No doubt Prudence has 
often regretted that she did not take my advice.” 

Then in a mood of extreme self-satisfaction, the 
worthy lady went up stairs to answer several letters 
which had lain neglected during the days of con- 
stant watchfulness necessitated by Roy Alston’s 
increasing devotion. 

Several well-filled envelopes were lying before her, 
when she heard a light tap at the door, and in reply 
to her “come in,” Mabel swiftly crossed the room, 
and without a word held out her slender hand, on 
which flashed a brilliant diamond. 

«*««««« 

Early the next morning. Prudence, going out upon 
the little piazza of the cottage, took up the morning 
paper. The first words that met her eyes, glaring 
before her in characters that suddenly seemed to 
reach gigantic size, were : 

“Accident to a yachting party. Mr. Montresor’s 
yacht, the Sea-Bird, was capsized in a thunder storm 
at nine o’clock last evening. Two lives lost.” 

The letters swam before Prudence’s eyes, and a 
death-like faintness stole over her. The Sea-Bird! 
A letter received from May only last evening had 
Tnentioned, among other plans for coming amuse- 


148 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


ments, a moonlight sail in Mr. Montresor’s yacht. 
Two lives lost ! What if one were her idolized sister, 
the only creature she had left in the wide world! 
Why, oh, why did she let her go ? Why had she not 
heeded the presentiment that warned her of coming 
evil? Trembling from head to foot she hurried into 
the house; the morning train was due in half an 
hour; she must catch it. To stay quietly at home, 
waiting for news minute after minute, was beyond 
her strength. With shaking fingers she made the 
necessary changes in her dress, and reached the sta- 
tion just in time to spring upon the platform of the 
last car, as the train rolled slowly forward through 
the green fields, sparkling with dewdrops in the early 
sunbeams. 

When she reached her journey’s end, it was broad 
bright noon-day; the air quivered with heat, the 
long dusty highway stretched for miles before her, 
and no conveyance of any kind was visible, save the 
strong wagon of the sturdy farmer, the only pas- 
senger who alighted with her at the little station. 
A kind-hearted man he evidently wms, for, on seeing 
Prudence’s dilemma, he instantl3'' offered her a seat 
in the vehicle, wdiich she gratefully' accepted; in her 
excited mood every' instant’s delay w'as torture, yet 
she could not force her white lips to ask the question 
that would at onee set all doubts at rest. Her com- 
panion, with an innate delicacy that many' wearers 


tea roses. 


149 


of finer broadcloth might have lacked, made no 
attempt to enter into conversation, but as if divin- 
ing the impatience of the pale-faced woman by his 
side, urged his horse to most unusual speed. At last, 
after what seemed an eternity to Prudence, the ave- 
nue gate appeared, and declining to be conveyed to 
the house, she sprang out and, hurriedly expressing 
her thanks, hastened up the drive. Five minutes 
more would end her torture of suspense. The villa, 
'now in full view, with the blue glittering sea beyond, 
gave no sign of life; every blind was closed, no 
human being appeared. Was it the silence that 
shrouds a house of mourning? Prudence paused an 
instant; the cjuickened throbbing of her heart fairly 
stopped her breath ; then moved on, up the broad 
flight of steps, across the wide piazza. Still no 
sound, no movement within. Her hand grasped the 
bell, a loud peal rang through the silent mansion, 
she heard rapid footsteps and the door was thrown 
open. Thrice she tried in vain to speak before her 
white lips could even form the words: “Miss 
Monroe?” There was an instant’s silence, every- 
thing whirled dizzily before her, a rushing sound was 
in her ears and the man’s voice sounded very faint 
and far away, as he said doubtfully: 

“Miss Monroe is ill; she met with an accident 
last night; I don’t think she could see anybody this 
morning.” 


150 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Ill, only ill— not dead ! Prudence felt as if slie were 
walking on air, the mist that had obscured her 
sight passed away, and with a strong effort of will 
controlling the nervous agitation, which, now that 
the tense strain of nerve and muscle had relaxed, 
threatened to find vent in a passion of tears, sbe 
passed quietly into the hall, saying, “Miss Monroe 
will see me, I think. Which is her room ? “ 

Before the servant could answer, Mrs. Van Arsdell 
appeared, coming slowly down the staircase. The 
light was dim and her sight less keen than in her 
younger da3's. At the first glance she failed to recog- 
nize the travel-stained figure; then as Prudence 
came forward, pale, haggard, and worn by the terri- 
ble suspense of the last few hours, she almost shrank; 
it seemed as if she were gazing at the ghost of the 
bright young beciuty who had left her ten years 
before. 

“Mabel,” cried Prudence, in her eagerness actually 
forgetting any form of greeting. “I must see her at 
once.” 

“She is in the rose-room — the first door on the 
right.” 

Almost before the words were spoken. Prudence 
had reached the top of the stairs; an instant 
more and Mabel, with a cry of “Oh! Prue, I wanted 
you so, I wanted you so,” lay sobbing in her arms. 

Half an hour passed before the j'oung girl was 


T£A HOSES. 


151 


calm enougli to tell the story of the accident. A gay 
party had assembled on the yacht for a moonlight 
sail, and though heavy clouds were rising on the 
horizon, little heed was at first paid, and when the 
yacht finally turned back toward the shore it was 
too late; the squall struek the vessel, capsizing it 
instantly, but all on board were saved. 

“Why, the paper reported two lives lost!” 
exclaimed Prudenee. 

“No,” replied May, “that was Roy and I. We 
were washed ashore senseless. The yacht had come 
very near the land before the squall struek her and 
the others elung to the riggingtill they were rescued. 
Oh! Prue, it was horrible! I was swept from the 
vessel, dragged down, down, down by those cruel 
blaek waves, when he saw me, swam toward me, 
and saved my life at the risk of his own. And only 
that rnorning I had doubted his love for me! My 
darling, darling Roy ! ” 

“Why, Mabel!” cried Prudence in amazement, 
then as Mabel suddenly covered her face with her 
hands to hide her burning blushes, she saw the 
diamond flashing on one slender finger, and deeply 
wounded added: 

“Engaged? And you did not tell me. May! I 
would never have believed it ! ” 

May burst into a flood of tears. “Oh, Prue, it 
only happened yesterday; I didn’t knovv^ what I 


152 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


was doing; I thouglit Roy was only playing with 
me, that everybody was laughing at my folly, that I 
could save you from wearing your life out teaching. 
Aunt Van Arsdell told me how much you had sacri- 
ficed for my sake— and so, and so, when Mr. 
Montresor — ” 

Here her voice failed, choked with sobs, and 
Prudence, alarmed at her excessive agitation, only 
strove to soothe her, but the girl’s next words fairly 
bewildered her. 

“Oh! what will Roy think of me, Prue — and Mr. 
Montresor, too? I can’t tell him I just meant to 
marry him for his money — and he is so kind, I like him 
so much — as a friend, you know — but I can never, 
never marry anybody now but Roy. Mr. Montresor 
came to me early this morning and I sent word I 
was too ill, for I couldn’t face him then and tell him. 
Just see the flowers and fruit he has sent since,” 
p )inting to two superb bouquets of exotics standing 
on the table on either side of a magnificent basket of 
hot-house fruit. 

“ He is coming again this afternoon, and Aunt Van 
Arsdell told me I must see him, it was all nonsense 
about Roy, I had engaged myself to Mr. Montresor, 
and must keep my word. Roy has been to see me 
too, but she sent him away.” 

“But, Ma3%” asked the bewildered Prudence, 
“ what does all this mean ? Who is Roy and who is 


TEA ROSES. 


153 


Mr. Montresor? Are they two different people? 
And oh, child, whj^ did you engage yourself to any 
man, if you did not love him ? ” 

Then in low, hurried tones, with many tears and 
blushes. May told the story of the past two weeks, 
Prudence listening with ever increasing indignation, 
as she saw through her sister’s sinTple recital of 
events the constant maneuvering that had wrecked 
her own young love ten years ago. But the climax 
of her wrath was reached when May, repeating the 
incidents of that morning, unconsciously betrayed 
how Mrs. Van Arsdell, to induce her to keep her 
promise to her wealthy lover, had represented the 
years of privation Prudence had endured for her sake, 
and the ease and luxury she might now secure her by 
a marriage with Mr. Montresor. 

“Never think of such a thing, my darling,” cried 
I’rue earnestly, “if anything could make me utterly 
miserable, it would be the thought that you had 
sacrificed your happiness for my sake. Give me the 
ring, dear, and when Mr. Montresor comes I will 
tell him the whole story. If he is the man he seems 
to be from what you say of him, he will forgive your 
broken promise. And now don’t talk any more. 
May. You are feverish and excited, try to rest. 
When do you expect Mr. Montresor? ” 

“At six o’clock.” 


154 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Prudence glanced at her watch. “It is just five. 
I shall have time to take off m3’ dress and remove 
a little of the dirt of m3’^ journey.” 

“Oh, Prue, put on my lawn instead ; it is hanging 
in the wardrobe yonder, all fresh and clean. It is so 
warm to-night, and I want you to look nice,” she 
added, coaxingly. 

Prudence smiled and nodded assent. Half an hour 
later she went to May’s bed and gently drew aside 
one of the curtains. The young girl was not asleep, 
she had been lying with her hands clasped under her 
head, watching Prue’s movements about the room. 

“Oh, Prue, you look so fair and sweet, you ought 
always to wear such dresses, instead of glvingevery- 
tliing prett}' to me. I won’t be so selfish again!” 
she exclaimed, and a faint flush crimsoned Prue’s 
cheek as she caught the reflection of her figure in the 
long mirror. Yes, in the fresh dainty muslin, with 
blue ribbons at the belt, she looked years younger 
than in the plain brown or gray stuff dresses she 
usually wore. Her soft brown hair, arranged with 
more than ordinary care, was drawn back in waves 
from the low, broad forehead and gathered in a 
Grecian knot at the back of her graceful head. With 
a faint feeling of pleasure she perceived that her 
beauty was not so wholly a thing of the past as she 
had imagined, that tasteful costumes, time to attire 
herself daintily, would give back much of the loveli- 


TEA ROSES. 


155 


ness she had thought forever lost, and almost invol- 
untarily she quoted: 

“Let never maiden tWnk, however fair, 

She is not fairer in new clothes than old.” 

“Ah, yes, Prue,” laughed Mabel. “Truer words 
were never spoken, as any one might see to look at 
you now. You shan’t wear those horrid old-maid 
dresses any more. Kiss me, dear! There’s just one 
thing you lack. Give me one of those bouquets. 

“There — ’’ her deft fingers quickly arranged the 
tea roses of which it was largely composed, into two 
clusters — “put one at your belt, another at your 
throat, and let me fasten this large single blossom in 
your hair.’’ 

“Oh! no, no. May!” exclaimed Prudence, shrink- 
ing back, almost with a sense of actual physical 
pain, “I have never worn tea roses since — ” 

“Since when?” asked May, looking up. 

“Since I was at Crag Cottage before,” replied 
Prudence, quietly. She could not tell even May, 
that the last time she had worn tea roses a young 
lover had fastened them in her hair, begging her to 
wear them for his sake, and their sweet, heavy fra- 
grance never failed to recall the memory of that 
hour. 

“Well, then, it’s time to wear them again,” 
laughed May, gaily, all unconscious of the associa- 


156 


LORELEI AMD OTHER STORIES. 


tions clustering around the creamyblossoms, “ do, 
dear, to please me. They just suit you, Prudence.” 

Prudence silently approached the bedside, and 
allowed May to fasten the flowers in her light dress 
and hair. It would seem unkind not to gratify^ her 
in such a trifle, and she could not, even to the young 
sister who was dearer than any one else in the 
world, tell the secret so long hidden in her heart. 
The scent of the blossoms oppressed her strangely, 
and going to the window she threw back the blinds 
to admit the cool sea-breeze. Just at that instant a 
carriage flashed swiftly past, and the next moment 
the bell pealed loudly through the house. 

“It’s Mr. Montresor!” exclaimed Mabel, “and 
Aunt Van Arsdell isn’t ready to go down; I heard 
Louise knock at her door not five minutes ago. 
Quick, quick. Prudence; I want you to see him first. 
I’m afraid, afraid — ” 

“Yes, yes, dear, I know. I will settle everything; 
but do lie down now and try to sleep. I’m really 
afraid you will have a fever if you excite your- 
self so!” 

Prudence glided swiftlj^ down the stairs, for she 
herself shared Mabel’s half expressed thought, that 
the task of explanation would be easier in Mrs. Van 
Arsdell’s absence. How familiar the wide hall looked! 
She paused an instant under the branching antlers 
of a stag’s head at the entrance of the long drawing- 


TEA ROSES. 


157 


room. This too, at the first glance, seemed 
unchanged, the floor of inlaid wood, the lace curtains 
swaying gently in the sea-breeze, the scent of 
flowers! She felt as if the past ten years had been 
only an evil dream and she was once more the fair 
young girl, who on the anniversary of that very day 
had listened to Paul Carroll’s whispered words of 
love. 

Mrs. Van Arsdell had given a dinner party, and 
when the guests returned to the drawing room, 
Paul and she had stolen out together on the wide 
piazza overlooking the sea. There, leaning on the 
balustrade, she had noticed an exquisite rose in 
the lapel of his coat, and he had asked permission to 
fasten it in her hair, saying that it was his favorite 
flower because it reminded him of her, so fair, so 
pure, so sweet. Then, doubtless emboldened by her 
downcast eyes, her vivid blushes, he had told her of 
his love. A moment more and he would have asked 
her to be his wife — the words were already half 
uttered, but, ere he could finish, Mrs. Van Arsdell 
swept out on the piazza wdth a group of friends, 
calling upon them to admire the beauty of the moon- 
light-crested waves, and during the remainder of the 
evening, all his attempts to sit a moment alone wnth 
her were quietly baffled. While taking leave, he 
hastily whispered a request that she would drive 
with him the next afternoon. How well she 


158 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


remembered the happy light that sparkled in his 
eyes, when she murmured her assent. Then at mid- 
night came the telegram, requesting her return to 
New York by the first train. Amid all her anxiety 
and alarm, she had written a note, expressing her 
regret that she was compelled to forego the pleasure 
of the drive in terms that must have said far more 
to him than would have been legible to the eye of a 
careless observer, and gave it with her own hand to 
the servant who drove her to the station, charging 
him to deliver it immediately. How she had 
watched and waited for an answer, her heart grow- 
ing heavier with each passing day, how she had 
reproached herself for giving so much thought to 
her own troubles, amid the increasing sorrow that 
oppressed her delicate, suffering mother. Then after 
their removal to Connecticut, when looking at the 
ship news for tidings of the vessel in which Mr. 
Monroe had sailed, she saw Paul Carroll’s name in 
the list of passengers of an outgoing European 
steamer. So he had left the country without even a 
word of farewell. And, with a pang of still keener 
suffering, the idea had flashed across her mind that 
perhaps their sudden reverse of fortune might have 
had something to do with this strange silence. 
These memories had darted like lightning through 
her brain, at the first glimpse of the familiar room, 
then, with a smile at her own folly, she advanced 


TEA ROSES. 


159 


toward a gentleman standing at the extreme end of 
the apartment, with his back toward her, gazing 
out upon the sea. Something about the tall, well- 
knit figure seemed familiar — surely the scent of the 
tea roses in her hair was bewitching her, making her 
fancy a likeness to her youngloverin the millionaire. 
What could be more absurd ! At the sound of her 
light step he turned toward her — fancy was playing 
her a cruel trick in giving Mabel’s wealthy lover 
Paul Carroll’s features. The two stood facing each 
other for an instant; the next Mr. Montresor 
stepped forward and, with the exclamation, 
“Prudence, Prudence, have I found you at last?” 
clasped her impetuously in his arms. 

A long, long silence followed, interrupted only by 
the low plash of the waves on the beach, the faint 
rustling of the curtains, and a shrill singing of a 
locust outside. Prudence was too much bewildered 
for words, and half afraid to speak, lest this, too, 
should be one of the happy dreams from which dur- 
ing the last ten years she had so often waked to 
the dull, cold world of reality. 

“Let me look at you. Prudence,” whispered her 
lover at last, “let me be sure it is really you, and 
you won’t vanish again like a will-o’-the-wisp. So 
you still wear my rose in your hair?” pressing his 
lips to the creamy petals, as her head rested on his 
breast. 


160 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“Vanish? But you might easily have found me,” 
she replied, with a sudden rush of recollection, 
releasing herself from his embrace. 

“Come out on the piazza, where we stood that 
night,” he pleaded, drawingher toward the window. 
“I was thinking of it when I stood here a moment 
ago, and at the first glance, half fancied I had con- 
jured up an apparition of the girl who had always 
lived in my memory as the fairest and sweetest of all 
the women I have ever known. Now tell me,” — as 
they passed on to the piazza — “why did you give me 
no news of you? I thought you dead, for when 
Miss Monroe arrived here, I asked Mrs. Van Arsdell 
if she had no other niece, and she said no.” 

“She spoke the truth; Mabel is only my half-sister, 
though I have always called Mrs. Van Arsdell 
aunt.” 

“Your half-sister? Do you know — 

“All,” replied Prudence, quietly. “I am here with 
a message from Ma3^” 

Explanations quickly followed. He had never 
received the letter, which the careless servant had 
forgotten to deliver, and, deeply wounded to find 
Prudence had left without a word of apology, at 
first with a lover’s sensitiveness imagined that she 
wished to show him the utter hopelessness of his 
suit, and in his grief and bitterness accepted a posi- 
tion in a commercial house in the East Indies, hoping 


TEA ROSES. 


161 


in change of scene to forget the past summer with 
its brief love-dream. Just as he was on the point of 
sailing, the letter, found and mailed by the servant 
to whom it had been entrusted, reached him, and he 
hastened to her home in New York only to find the 
house inhabited by new occupants, who could tell 
him nothing of the former ones. The few inquiries 
his limited time permitted him to make were useless, 
and he was compelled to take his departure after 
writing a long impassioned letter to Prudence, 
which he enclosed in one to Mrs. Van Arsdell. 

‘ ‘ She was in Europe at the time, and probably never 
received it, ’’observed Prudence, too happy to let any 
thought of possible false dealingenter her mind now. 

“I waited month after month,” continued Mr. 

Montresor, “hoping against hope, and trying by 

devotion to business to secure the means of giving 

you a pleasant home. Still no letter came. I wrote 

a second, with the same result. Meanwhile I had had 

a more advantageous offer from an English firm, 

which I accepted. The head of the house was a 

childless old man, immensely rich. I nursed him 

through a severe attack of illness, and to my ama25e- 

ment, on his death, it was found that with the 

exception of a few trifling legacies he had left me his 

entire fortune, on condition that I should take his 

name, Montresor. As soon as I could settle my 

affairs I hurried home to try to find the only person 
11 


162 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


who could make my wealth a source of happiness. 
Was it in vain, Prudence ? ” 

When Mrs. Van Arsdell, having completed her 
toilet as rapidly as possible, hastened down stairs 
to receive Mr. Montresor, and try to give as plausi- 
ble an excuse as possible for May’s refusal to see 
him, that gentleman, entering through the long 
window with Prudence, quietly presented her to his 
startled hostess as his future wife. In strict justice 
to the worthy lady, however, it must be stated, that 
in her endeavor to secure the best match of the 
season for May instead of Prudence, she had been 
actuated by no hostility toward the latter, only the 
very natural belief that a fresh younggirl of nineteen 
would be more likely to attract the millionaire than 
a woman ten years her senior. She was in nowise 
annoyed at the unexpected turn of affairs, but cor- 
dially congratulated her “dear niece,” and was even 
reconciled to an engagement between May and Roy 
Alston, in consideration of the fact that two such 
prizes as Mr. Montresor could scarcely be expected 
to fall to the lot of one family. 

The double wedding for which Roy obtained an 
extension of his leave of absence, took place a month 
later at Crag Cottage. May wore the conventional 
orange blossoms, but the rare lace on Prudence’s 
dress— a gift from the bridegroom— was looped with 
tea roses. 


HIRING A DORY. 



HIRING A DORY. 


“Quaint — quiet — queer! Eustace, I believe if the 
letter Q had been omitted from the alphabet, 
Nantucket would never have waked from its Rip 
Van Winkle sleep to become a fashionable watering- 
place.” 

''Fashionable seems rather a misnomer for a spot 
where flannel suits and sand shoes are the universal 
uniform.” 

" Frequented then, if you’re so deuced particular. I 
hold to my original statement. Nantucket owes its 
present popularity solely and exclusively to the 
letter Q. Treasures of old china and dilapidated 
brass-handled furniture, downs with stunted pine 
trees, lookouts whence ancient mariners swept 
the horizon with their spy-glasses for incoming 
whalers, invigorating sea-breezes, — all were here 
years before some enterprising newspaper reporter 
wrote an article, plentifully sprinkled with Q’s, and, 
presto, change! the sleepy old island became a 
fashionable watering-place.” 

165 


166 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


His companion shook his head. “I grant the Q’s, 
Ned, bnt the line must be drawn somewhere, and I 
protest against the fashionable.” 

“You always were obstinate,” replied the other, 
coolly. “Now I maintain that when a girl like 
Annie Kavanagh, who. Dame Rumor asserts, is 
always attired according to the latest Parisian 
whim, comes to Nantucket instead of going to 
Newport, the island may fairly be entitled to claim 
rank as a fashionable — ” 

“Well, well, a truce to argument,” interrupted 
Eustace Maxwell somewhat impatiently; “you are 
as bad as a woman in your desire to have the last 
word. Having reached this far-famed island, let’s 
enjoy its ‘invigorating air’ and all the other boasted 
advantages without quarrelling over them.” 

“With all my heart, old fellow; but you don’t 
mean to spend the whole afternoon lying here on the 
sand looking at the water, do you? True, as 
Nantucketers never fail to mention, there’s nothing 
between us and France, yet monotony — by Jove, 
that’s a good-looking girl yonder,” he cried, inter- 
rupting himself, “how well she manages her dory ! ” 

Eustace Maxwell, a tall, broad-shouldered young 
fellow, lying full length on the yellow sand at 
’Sconset beach, turned his head slightly toward the 
right, and saw, a few hundred yards away, a slender 


HIRING A DORY. 


167 


figure clad in blue flannel, seated in a boat wbich 
was just approaching the beach. 

“Yes, very well,” he answered quietly. “But 
where are you going? ” as his friend, who had been 
sitting beside him, suddenly sprang to his feet. 

“Down to hire the girl yonder to take me out in 
her boat for an hour. You can lie here enjoying 
your dolce far niente till I come back.” 

“Have a care, Ned, she may not be a fisherman’s 
daughter. I’m told several of the cottages in the 
village have been rented to people from the city, 
and you may make an awkward blunder.” 

“Don’t you suppose I can distinguish between a 
city girl and a fisherman’s daughter? ” replied the 
other indignantly, striding off in the direetion of the 
skiff so rapidly that he barely heard Eustaee say: 

“Remember, everybody wears flannel here.” 

The two young men, eollege chums and now law 
students in the same ofiSee, were utterly unlike in 
temperament. Eustaee Maxwell, steady, deliberate, 
and rather averse to unnecessary physieal exer- 
tion, was the exact counterpart of his vivacious, 
impulsive, energetic friend, to whom, as the latter 
often laughingly remarked, he acted as a balance- 
wheel. Accustomed to Ned’s sudden eapriees, he lay 
idly watching him, a smile hovering around his lips, 
ashemurmured: “Wonder what luck he’ll have with 


168 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


the sea njmph! She’ll take him, no doubt. Ned 
always has his own way with women.” 

The young man thus apostrophized ran lightly 
down to the strip of shining wet sand fringing the 
creaming waves, calling as he approached: “My 
good girl, can I have the use of your dory an hour? ” 
“I never let my dory go out without me,” was the 
somewhat curt reply. 

“Very well, stay in it and row.” 

The straight, slim young figure, whose graceful 
proportions even the clumsy flannel boating suit 
could not wholly conceal, turned abruptly. The 
girl’s hair was completely hidden under her coarse 
straw hat, and a blue veil covered her eyes ; but her 
features were small and delicate, and her mouth, 
though large, disclosed a set of unusually beautiful 
teeth, when after a moment’s hesitation, she 
answered, smiling: 

“An hour then.” 

Ned instantly stepped into the boat, which the 
next moment was dancing lightly over the waves. 
The bluff, Eustace’s prostrate figure, the fishermen’s 
tiny cottages, grew less and less distinct. Ned 
watched approvingly the graceful slope of the row- 
er’s shoulders, her shapely waist, the easy sway of the 
body, and felt a strong desire to obtain a better 
view of the face almost hidden under the coarse 
straw hat. 


HIRING A DORY. 


169 


Perhaps if he drew her into conversation she would 
lift the little head now drooping so shyly, 

“You row well,” he began, “have you had much 
practice ? ” 

“I have rowed every summer since I was strong 
enough to hold an oar,” replied the young girl, in a 
low tone, so muffled by the huge brim of the hat that 
he could barely catch the words. 

“Every summer? Ah! yes, I suppose in winter 
only the men can venture out. What do you do 
then?” 

There was a moment’s hesitation, then the curt 
answer: “What the other girls do.” 

Not disposed to be very communicative, thought 
the young man. I’ll try again — Nantucketers are 
generally loquacious. 

“Have you lived on the island all your life? ” 

“I was born here.” 

“And may I ask your name?” 

“Nancy Folger.” 

Then a quickened stroke of the oars sent the boat 
faster through the water, as if to intimate that the 
rower did not care to waste time in talk. 

Shy, poor girl! thought Stuart; I’ll let her alone 
awhile and try again. 

But try as he would, during the hour spent rowing 
along the shore— for the young girl did not seem 
inclined to go far away from the quaint little fishing 


170 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


village— Stuart, deservedly popular in his own circle, 
utterly failed to win anything but the most mono- 
syllabic replies from the slender young islander— a 
state of affairs so novel in his experience that it was 
almost with a sensation of relief that he sprang out 
on the sand, when the boat touched the beach. 

His companion seemed to share the feeling, judg- 
ing from the haste with which she turned in the 
opposite direction, walking with a light, firm tread 
over the sand. 

“Why, I forgot to pay her!” Stuart suddenly 
exclaimed under his breath. “ Queer that she didn’t 
remind me.” 

Turning, he hastily followed the blue-robed figure, 
now some distance off; but the soft sand into which 
he sank ankle deep at every step, made the pursuit 
slower than he anticipated, and his call remained 
unheeded. At last a tow-headed little fellow, shoe- 
less and hatless, shouted, “There’s somebody a 
hollerin’ after you. Miss — ” and the young girl slowly 
turned. 

“You forgot— I— is this right?” he stammered, 
marvelling at his own embarrassment, but unable to 
shake off a sudden misgiving, — “this” being a gold 
dollar. 

“I— I suppose so,” she answered, and at the same 
moment a little girl, coming out of one of the tiny 
houses, screamed shrilly : 


HIRING A DORY. 


171 


“Nan, Nan, father’s got home and wants dinner 
right away.” 

“Yes, yes, I’m coming!” and without a word of 
farewell to the young man, the girl ran swiftly up 
the bluff. 

Ten minutes after, Stuart had rejoined his friend 
and was on the way back to Nantucket. As the 
horse, sometimes sinking fetlock deep in sand, plod- 
ded slowly along the scarcely distinguishable road 
leading across the desolate, wind-swept downs, Ned 
suddenly exclaimed ; 

“Upon my honor. Maxwell, I never passed so 
queer an hour in my life. The girl seemed possessed 
with a dumb spirit, and just at the last — when I 
paid her for the use of her boat — a horrible suspicion 
stole over me that you might have been right, and I 
had actually asked some fair cottager ‘to row me 
o’er the water.’ ” 

“I think it extremely probable,” replied Maxwell, 
coolh--, lighting a cigar. 

“Ah, but happily you were wrong. At the very 
instant I was feeling hot and cold all over, a shrill- 
voiced young imp on the bluff yelled to my boat- 
woman that ‘father wanted dinner,’ and away she 
flew at a pace that would have done no discredit to 
Atalanta. Imagine my relief! But I wonder a long 
course of pots and kettles hadn’t made her hands 
larger and clumsier.” 


172 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“When you have quite exhausted the fishermaiden 
subject, you may be interested in a bit of news that 
came to me while I was lying on the beach. Sutton 
is here, and told me, among other items, that the 
Yacht Club was going to Newport early next week, 
and all sorts of entertainments were to be given ; 

^ among other things a ball at Bay Sands, the villa 
his cousin, Mrs. Moore, has taken. He urged our 
running over there for a few days, and I don’t think 
it would be a bad idea. Quite a number of people 
are going from here — among others, MissKavanagh. 

' She has been staying at Nantucket a month, and I 
fancy has grown rather tired of the blue flannel 
uniform adopted by the sex, and yearns to display 
some of the Worth costumes for which she is 
;■ famous.” 

“By no means a bad idea! Newport will be a 
y pleasant change. Mrs. Moore is a charming 
I woman, her balls are delightful, and her dinners—” 

“ Throw Lucullus’ banquets into the shade, I dare 
say. Then I’m to tell Sutton we’ll go? ” he added. 
“He leaves on the early boat to-morrow.” 

“By all means. Newport, especially when the 
Yacht Club is there, is no place to be despised, and I 
K-; shall be glad to meet Miss Kavanagh; my sister Lou 
|i. is alv/ays sounding her praises.” 

^ A week later the two young men, in faultless even- 
Wr ing dress, were greeting pretty, piquante Mrs. 


HIRING A DORY. 


173 


Moore, the mistress of Bay Sands. Stuart, a 
special favorite of the hostess, lingered a moment 
behind his friend to exchange a few more words with 
her. Just as he turned away, a lady entering the ball 
room attracted his attention, and he hastily asked 
Mrs. Moore: 

“Who is the girl in white, coming in with 
Spencer?” 

“ Is it possible you do n’t know ? Why, that’s Miss 
Kavanagh, Annie Kavanagh. She has been a great 
belle in New York all winter — a friend of your sister, 
too. I wonder you never met.” 

“ The fates have been against it. I spent most of 
the winter in the West, attending to some business 
for my father, and when I returned Lou went immedi- 
ately to Florida. Pity the loss I have sustained all 
these months, and present me now.” 

“I’m not sure I like to interfere with the decrees of 
the Fates,” was the laughing reply. “Perhaps they 
are trying to save you from losing your heart. Miss 
Kavanagh will draw it out of your possession as 
surely as the magnetic mountain drew the nails from 
the ships in the Arabian Nights’ fairy tale.” 

“I must take the risk. She is‘ Lou’s friend, you 
know. Perhaps on that account she’ll have a little 
mercy on her brother.” 

“Don’t trust to that. However, on your own 
head be it. Here she comes.” 


174 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


The next instant Stuart was bowing before a slen- 
der, golden-haired girl, lovely enough, he mentally 
admitted, to make it needful for a man to guard his 
heart. A faint flush heightened the delicate, sea-shell 
tints of Miss Kavanagh’s complexion, a sudden 
expression of recognition flashed into her eyes, then 
she said, laughingly : 

“Your face is very familiar, Mr. Stuart. I saw 
your photo often in your sister’s room last win- 
ter.” 

“Lou has rather a fancy for surrounding herself 
with a family picture gallery,” replied the young 
man, smiling; then added: “Doesn’t your photo 
also adorn her table? We have never met until this 
evening, and yet — ” 

He paused suddenly, for the girl’s fair face flushed 
scarlet. Why should so simple a question have 
embarrassed her? But at the same instant the first 
notes of Du und Du floated on the air, and in his 
anxiety to secure his companion’s hand for the waltz, 
Stuart forgot to wonder over the incident. 

It recurred to his mind again, however, when in 
the small hours of the next morning he sat discuss- 
ing the merits of the ball with his friend Maxwell 
over a choice cigar, and, though he did not refer to 
the matter, vainly tried to find some cause for Miss 
Kavanagh’s confusion. The riddle pursued him even 
in his dreams, and the sun, shining full in his face. 


HIRING A DORY. 


175 


roused him from visions in which the beautiful girl 
had assumed as many shapes as Proteus. 

Perhaps a desire to solve the enigma, perhaps the 
natural magnet of Miss Kavanagh’s beauty, drew 
him to her side hour after hour during the week that 
folio w'ed. Whatever might have been the cause, the 
inevitable result ensued. Ere seven days had passed, 
Stuart thought somewhat ruefully of pretty Mrs. 
Moore’s prediction, and had a far more important 
riddle to puzzle over during moments of solitude. 
Did she, the petted belle and beauty, admired, sought 
wherever she appeared, care, ever so slightly, for 
him? Was there even the smallest spark of prefer- 
ence that could be fanned into a flame ? Sometimes, 
for one brief, delicious moment, when the blue eyes 
drooped under his gaze, he fancied so, but the next 
instant was ready to laugh at himself for his 
folly. 

The week the two friends had planned to spend at 
Newport slipped swiftly away, yet Stuart still lin- 
gered, alleging various ingenious pretexts for each 
day’s delay, — these pretexts being received by Max- 
well with a more and more quizzical expression of 
countenance. 

Nearly a fortnight had elapsed, when Ned one 
bright morning strolled along the cliffs toward Mrs. 
Moore’s villa. It was early September, and the blue 


176 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


mirror of the sea, rippling under a fresh breeze, glit- 
tered like a huge sapphire. 

Still pondering over the old, old problem, “She 
loves me — loves me not! “ the young man walked far 
beyond the pretty villa of which Mrs. Moore was 
the presiding genius. Roused at last from his reverie 
by the sudden cry of a sea-bird, he found himself on 
a high bluff, where stood a gaily-painted summer 
house affording a superb view of the tossing waves 
foaming at the foot of the towering pile of rocks, 
fringed with kelp, and bearing in every crevice 
autumn’s gay banner, the feathery plumes of golden- 
rod. 

Even lovers can feel fatigue, and Stuart, perceiving 
that he had a long distance over which to retrace his 
steps, entered the little pavilion to rest. The bright 
sun, shining warmly on him, and the low, monotonous 
roar of the surf below soon lulled him to sleep — a 
sleep from which he was roused by a girlish voice 
whose tones during the past two weeks had seemed 
to him the sweetest music in the world. 

“Oh I Maud, I’ve lost the dollar from my bangle — 
the chain must have caught when I gathered that 
last spray of golden-rod. I’ll go back andlook. But, 
oh, dear! do you suppose I shall ever find it among 
all those chinks and crevices? ’’ 

“Why! Annie, one would think some Black Friday 
had swallowed up your whole fortune! A dollar I 


HIRING A DORY. 


177 


I never gave you credit for being miserly before. 
Oh! — now I understand: it has some associa- 
tions!” 

“Don’t be absurd, Maud. Come and help me find 
it. You always have good luck when you hunt for 
things.” 

“We really haven’t time, Annie. It is growing 
late, and if you mean to drive to the Fort with Mr. 
Stuart this afternoon — however, poor fellow, if the 
dollar, as I suspect from your anxiety, is a gage 
d' amour — ” 

“Nonsense, Maud. But do help me find it. It’s 
the first dollar I ever earned in my life, and I never 
expect to make another.” 

“Earned? How in the world — did you paint a 
plaque, or — ” 

“No, indeed. It was good, hard, honest work. 
An hour’s rowing in my dory at Nantucket.” 

“Annie!” 

“It’s true. You see, if a Black Friday ever does 
sweep away my property, there’s a way by which to 
earn a living.” 

“So charmingly easy, too. But tell me all 
about it.” 

“Not a word till you find my dollar. Here’s the 
clump of golden-rod.” 

“Oh! and here’s the dollar, hanging by its chain. 

No, I won’t give it to you till you tell me the whole 
12 


178 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


story. The sooner I hear it, the sooner you’ll have 
your treasure. Now, begin, while we climb the cliff. 
First, how did you earn a dollar for an hour’s row- 
ing?” 

“Somebody hired me to take him out in my 
dory.” 

Ah, Annie! Was he young — good-look- 
ing?” 

“Oh, Maud, never mind. I scarcely looked at him, 
I believe. He evidently took me for a fisherman’s 
daughter — I had on my flannel boating-dress — and 
asked if I would row him out in my boat. I thought 
it would be fun, and said yes, but after we were 
fairly off I felt horribly ashamed of myself. I was so 
afraid he would find out — ” 

“That you were not a fisherman’s daughter? Of 
course. He must have been awfully stupid not to 
discover that in a whole hour.” 

“Not at all. I hardly spoke to him. My big, 
broad-brimmed bathing hat was tied down over my 
face with a thick blue veil, so that he could barely see 
the tip of my nose.” 

“And the dollar? ” Maud eagerly pursued. “Did 
he ask your charge? Oh, Annie, what fun it must 
have been I ” 

“Not half so much fun as you think,” replied Miss 
Kavanagh, joining in her companion’s laugh. “I 
was terribly afraid he might find me out. I really 


HIRING A DORY. 


179 


believe he would— I was so shame-faced about taking 
the money — ^if I hadn’t turned a lucky accident to 
account.” 

“An accident?” 

“Yes. He forgot to give me the money when he 
first left the boat, and I was hurrying as fast as pos- 
sible toward ’Sconset, but he overtook me, and 
stammering so that I thought he had discovered I 
was masquerading, asked if a dollarwas right. Just 
at that instant, happily for me, Ben’s little girl — you 
remember Ben, the tall fisherman, whose cottage was 
next to ours? ” 

“Yes. How did she help you out of the 
scrape? ” 

“Why, by coming to the edge of the bluff, shriek- 
ing at the top of her shrill little voice, ‘Nan, Nan, 
father’s got home and wants dinner right away.” 

“And you rushed at once to cook it? ” 

“You may be sure I did, calling to the child : ‘Yes, 
yes, I’m coming.’ I’ve often laughed since at the 
recollection of her big blue eyes staring at me in 
utter bewilderment. Luckily my passenger didn’t 
see, as I did, the real Nan running from the opposite 
direction.” 

“And you’ve never seen this passenger since? ” 
There was a moment’s hesitation; Stuart, his 
eyes sparkling with amusement, leaned a little for- 
ward to catch the reply. 


180 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“How could I? I left Nantucket the very next 
day.” 

“What a pity!” cried Maud, not noticing the 
evasion. “You ought to have met him again; why, 
you’re blushing at the very idea, Annie. But it’s 
really too bad ; it would have been such a romantic 
beginning for a love affair.” 

“Nonsense, Maud.” 

“Well, I only hope you’ll meet him somewhere 
yet. Fancy his feelings when he discovers that he 
hired the belle of New York to row him out in her 
dory.” 

“You need not pity him. He won’t recognize 
me.” 

“ Do n’t be too sure.” 

The sound of the steps and voices gradually died 
away along the cliff, and Stuart pursued his way 
homeward at a rapid pace. Chance had kindly 
given him the clue to his first puzzle, and the young 
man was ready to hail in this a good omen for the 
happy solution of the second. Besides, would Miss 
Kavanagh have worn the gold dollar, if the giver 
had been wholly indifferent to her? She had recog- 
nized him as the hero of the boating adventure at 
the first glance. How stupid he had been 1 Some- 
thing in the poise of the shapely head, the carriage 
of the lithe, slender figure had seemed familiar at the 
first glance, but he had never thought of associating 


HIRING A DORY. 


181 


tHe Nantucket fisherman’s daughter with the New- 
port belle ! How dull she must think him ! 

Suddenly a thought darted into his mind, and with 
the exclamation, “the very thing, a Roland for her 
Oliver!” he bent his steps toward a florist’s estab- 
lishment on Bellevue avenue, with the result that, 
ten minutes before the hour appointed for the drive, 
Miss Kavanagh received some exquisite yellow roses 
arranged in the novel design of a skiff, whose stern 
bore the name, “Nancy Folger,” wrought in tiny 
white blossoms. 

Spite of every effort to maintain an air of uncon- 
cern, Annie Kavanagh’s fair face crimsoned with 
blushes as she met Stuart’s laughing eyes, and on the 
principle that “all’s fair in love and war,” the young 
man may be pardoned for asking — as his lovely com- 
panion somewhat confusedly thanked him for his 
flowers — if she thought the design a good model of 
the Nantucket dory, carefully concealing the fact 
that only within the past few hours had he been 
aware that their acquaintance dated from the beach 
at ’Sconset. 

Another question was asked and answered during 
the drive — a question whose favorable answer filled 
the columns of New York society journals, early in 
December, with full descriptions of the trousseau pre- 
pared for the approaching marriage of the beautiful 
Miss Annie Folger Kavanagh. 


I 


KATE’S CAMEOS. 


4 


KATE^S CAMEOS 


^‘Kate!” 

^^KateT 

“Kate!” 

Three voices in one breath uttered the name in a 
crescendo of amazement. 

“Well, my dears, don’t look as if I’d told you I 
had just committed a murder, and hidden my victim 
in the -well.” 

The speaker, a tall, graceful blonde of twenty, 
turned a laughing face toward her three companions; 
but there was a suspicious glitter in the blue eyes, 
and the tones of the clear voice were a little 
unsteady. 

“You see, girls,” she continued, rapidly, “it’s no 
use to conceal the truth ; something must be done to 
make money. We haven’t a hundred dollars in the 
world. But for Maud’s generosity — no, don’t inter- 
rupt me, Maud; you’ll never convince me that you 
gave up Saratoga, and came here for the summer 
just from pure love of coimtiy quiet — we should not 

183 


186 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


be able to live even in this tiny cottage, the last rem- 
nant of property Virgil Vaughn could leave his 
daughters.” 

“But to go to the Centennial and exhibit Mr* 
Sullivan’s gjoods all day — oh, Kate, I can’t have it! ” 
cried Julia, a prett^-^ girl of eighteen. “Just think, 
Maud, Kate all alone in that crowd! Pray, dear, 
listen ; do something else, give music lessons, teach 
French and German — ” 

“In this little village? I’ve tried; nobody wants 
to learn. No, Julia,” she added, resolutely, “Mr. 
Sullivan means kindly. He pities us, I suppose,” 
here a sudden flush crimsoned the girl’s very tem- 
ples, “and when I went to the city yesterday to ask 
him to purchase the set of cameos I bought in Rome 
— my great extravagance while I was abroad — he 
told me he wanted a lady to show his jewelry at the 
Exhibition, and after a great deal of stammering, 
offered me the place, my expenses paid, and twenty 
dollars a week. It would have been worse than 
foolish, wicked to refuse.” 

“Kate, Kate!” cried Maud, “it’s worse than fool- 
ish, wicked, to refuse me. Aren’t you my own 
cousins? don’t I love you as if you were my own 
sisters? Stop this ridiculous nonsense about inde- 
pendence, and live with me.” 

“No, Maud; we’ve gone through that argument 
over and over again. It’s useless. Your income has 


KATE’S CAMEOS. 


187 


only been enough for your own dress and expenses. 
How is it to support four? Do you suppose I’ll let 
you deny yourself everything that we may all live in 
a state of genteel pauperism? Yes, that’s just what 
it would be, dear,” she added, stopping her cousin’s 
reply with a kiss, and then turning, ran hastily up 
stairs. 

Julia quietly followed, leaving her younger sister, 
Mattie, with Maud. The house, the only property 
saved from the wreck of fortune that ensued after 
the death of Mr. Vaughn, formerly reputed one of 
New York’s wealthiest bankers, was indeed a tiny 
dwelling, scarcely large enough to contain the four 
girls who now formed the household, and old Sarah, 
Kate’s nurse, who had obstinately refused to desert 
“her children,” and moved with them to the little 
village in Westchester county, which was to be their 
future home. 

Julia hesitated a moment ere she crossed the 
threshold of the chamber, over whose bare floor the 
vines waving in the sunlight at the window wove a 
dainty arabesque of light and shade. 

“Kate, dear,” she murmured, “have you thought 
that you may meet him ? ” 

Kate turned ; her resolute will could not restrain 
the eloquent blood that dyed cheeks and forehead to 
the very roots of the golden hair wound like a cor- 
onet around her graceful head. 


188 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“Ross Dunmore? Yes, I have thouglit ; but it is 
scarcely probable. He has returned to Philadelphia, 

I know; but chance will hardly bring us together in 
that vast crowd; and if it should, he’ll never recog- 
nize ‘Miss Vaughn, the heiress,’ in ‘Mr. Sullivan’s 
shop-girl.’ ” 

The last words were uttered with a touch of bitter- 
ness. Kate was no saint, and her sister’s question 
had brought before her with painful distinctness the 
bright, proud face of the man who not a twelve- 
month before had followed her from city to city of 
the Old World, seeming to live only in her pres- 
ence. 

“Kate, dear,” Julia persisted, “are you sure, quite 
sure there was no mistake? I can’t believe anyone 
could help loving you for yourself, or leave you so 
coldly, so cruelly — ” 

“The way of the world,” interrupted her sister 
quickly, in a tone that, spite of her pride, was tremu- 
lous with pain. “I would not have believed iteither 
then,” with a sudden softening of her voice as rhem- 
ory recalled looks, tones, which, once her happiness, 
were now transformed to keenest torture. “No, I 
would not have believed it. Still ‘ Miss Vaughn, the 
heiress,’ was the woman he wooed; how could I 
expect him to remain constant when ever3'^thing else 
is so changed that I scarcely know myself? No, there 
could be no mistake,” she added, in a low tone, as if 


KATE’S CAMEOS. 


189 


unconscious of Julia’s presence, and repeating each 
item in a story so often reiterated that it was known 
by heart. “We had been engaged just one day, had 
told no one, we did not want to share ourhappiness; 
after a ball at the Contessa Baldassari’s in Rome we 
parted, and when Mrs. Sinclair and I reached our 
hotel, there was the telegram announcing papa’s ill- 
ness. If I lost the early morning train, I might have 
to wait two days for a steamer. The Sinclairs 
insisted upon going with me. In the midst of our 
hurry I found time to write Ross a note. Not daring 
to trust a servant’s memory, I went to the rooms 
occupied by his pretty cousin, Miss Tremaine — fort- 
unately she was staying with her mother at the 
same hotel — apologized for disturbing her so earlj’-, 
gave her the note, and told her our secret. She was 
so kind, kissed and congratulated me, sympathized 
with my anxiety, and assured me Ross should have 
the letter the first thing in the morning. There could 
have been no mistake. But the next morning,” she 
added, sadly, “while on our way to Paris, the Euro- 
pean papers we bought had the news of the death 
and insolvency of the rich American banker, Mr. 
Vaughn. Ross saw the notices, too, of course, and 
doubtless congratulated himself that the world 
knew nothing of his engagement, and he could drop 
the bankrupt’s penniless daughter. He might have 
been a little kinder, given me a few words in my 


190 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


trouble; for oh, Julia, I loved him so dearly, so 
dearly!” she cried, bursting into a passion of sobs, 
which Julia, terrified at the sudden realization of the 
depth of her sister’s grief, vainly tried to soothe. 
Now that the barriers of restraint were broken, it 
was long ere the young girl could regain her self- 
command. 

Early the next morning — she had purposely given 
her younger sisters little time for expostulation — 
Kate was speeding toward Philadelphia. As the 
roofs and steeples of the city rose before her, her 
heart involuntarily sank, and for a few brief 
moments her courage failed at the thought of the 
many difficulties and annoyances she could not hope 
to escape. Julia’s words, “Have you thought that 
you may meet him? ” repeated themselves over and 
over in her brain with cruel iteration; her face 
flushed, and the corners of the beautiful mouth 
drooped with a weary, infinitely sad expression, as 
memory painted in vivid hues her faithless lover’s 
noble features and dark, soft eyes. Recalling those 
eyes, shining with the look a man bestovrs only on 
the one woman who is all the world to him, her 
heart cried out against the cruel truth, struggled 
fiercely against the belief that only her father’s 
wealth had made her Ross Dunmore’s “Queen 
Katherine.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she remem- 


KATE’S CAMEOS. 


191 


bered the low, fond tones in which he had murmured 
the pet name. 

Just at that instant the train rushed into the sta- 
tion, and Kate, with the rest of the passengers, left 
the car. Standing a moment, irresolute which way 
to turn, and pushed to and fro by the hurrying 
crowd of Centennial travelers, elegantly dressed 
gentlemen and ladies, countrymen with sunburnt 
faces and red hands, busy porters bearing huge 
trunks on their shoulders, her ear was caught by the 
tones of a woman’s voice, “Home at last, Ross! 
How I do hate to travel in such warm weather! ” A 
party of fashionables were just leaving the Pullman 
drawing-room car, a luxury Kate’s limited means 
had compelled her to forego. A lady attired in a 
tasteful traveling suit of brown silk and camel’s hair 
led the way, leaning on the arm of a tall, stylish 
man. His head was turned away; but every move- 
ment of the lithe, athletic figure was too familiar to 
Kate for her to mistake him a single instant. Ross 
Dunmore! She grew strangely faint; she had over- 
rated her strength.. The sight of the well-known 
form roused such a passion of eager longing for one 
glimpse of the face still so dear to her, that she had 
need to summon all her pride, all the memory of the 
bitter wrong he had done her, the cold heartlessness 
of his desertion, to stifle the wild cry upon her lips. 
An instant more, and a sturdy porter pushed her 


192 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


aside, the tall figure vanished, and she was wearily 
making her way through the throng to the line ol 
horse-ears that ran to the Centennial buildings. Just 
as she entered, an elegant private carriage dashed by 
— a gentleman seated within leaned forward to 
arrange the traveling satchels and shawls lying in a 
heap opposite to him. Ross Dunmore’s face again! 
Kate, with a deadly faintness at her heart, was glad 
to drop into the seat some kindly soul, touched by 
the girl’s pale face, struggled up to offer. 

The sudden stopping of the car roused Kate from 
her sad thoughts. She had sent her baggage to the 
quiet boarding-house recommended by Mr. Sullivan, 
and now proceeded at once to the building where her 
new duties awaited her, the superb Main Hall. Daz- 
zled and almost bewildered by the brilliant colors, 
the glitter of steel, silver and burnished copper that 
greeted her eyes, she passed slowly onward, only 
pausing now and then to admire the wonderful 
ingenuity with which some of the most common- 
place articles were made to vie in attractiveness 
with their more costly neighbors, until she reached 
the portion of the building occupied by the jewelers, 
and to her great relief found that the place assigned 
to Mr. Sullivan was somewhat secluded. With rare 
good taste he had fitted up his pavilion with deep 
maroon hangings ; while instead of dazzling the eyes 
of the spectators by a large display of showy orna- 


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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

READING ROOM 


KATE’S CAMEOS. 


193 


merits, lie had selected a few of the finest gems in his 
collection, arranged with the utmost care, evidently 
desiring to win the approval of connoisseurs rather 
than the admiration of the crowd. Diamonds of the 
finest water, affixed to gold wires, quivered like dew- 
drops, flashing with every hue of the rainbow; rare 
pearls, whose delicate pink hue vied with the tint of 
the inner petals of a rose, made many a fair one 
break the tenth commandment; but choicest of all 
were the exquisitely carved cameos, ranged one 
above another on crimson velvet, some unset, some 
surrounded by a more or less elaborate frame of 
gold. Among these jewels Kate’s cameos, a set of 
pin and earrings, elicited universal admiration. Mr. 
Sullivan had kindly offered to place them with his . 
own, frankly telling the young girl that he had 
nothing to equal them, and could not afford to pay 
their real value; but doubtless, if displayed at the 
Centennial, someone of wealth and taste would 
gladly secure ornaments of such rare beauty. The 
design was a most singular one, the bars of a prison, 
behind which sat a man fettered with heavy chains, 
while an angel opened the door of the dungeon. The 
stones had been carved to order for Kate by the best 
master of the art in Rome, at a price which startled 
even the rich banker’s daughter; but declaring it 
would be “her one extravagance abroad,’’ and 
delighted with the exquisite delicacy of the work, 


194 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


she had not hesitated to secure the jewels. How 
well she remembered the night they had been sent 
home, only a day before her sudden departure from 
the “Eternal City;’’ how eagerly Ross Dunmore had 
admired them, whispering, with a lover’s fondness, 
that “they were royal gems, just fit for his Queen 
Katherine.” 

The memory of that night came over Kate with a 
keen pang as she saw the jewels resting on the crim- 
son velvet cushion; but she resolutely shut out the 
thought, and fixed her mind upon her duties. At 
first her color came and went and her heart throbbed 
painfully, dreading to see in each new-comer Ross 
Dunmore’s well-known figure; but as hour after 
hour, day after day elapsed, the anxious fear van- 
ished, and she began to enjoy watching the crowd 
that passed and repassed or entered the pretty 
pavilion to inspect the rare jewels it contained. 
Many an eye wandered from the glitter of diamonds 
and the soft lustre of pearls to admire the elegant girl 
in the simple black dress with the coronet of fair 
hair crowning her graceful head, ever ready to 
answer questions or give information, but whose 
quiet dignity effectually repressed the slightest 
attempt at familiar conversation. 

Several weeks had passed. Kate had become 
accustomed to her new life, and wrote home merry 
accounts of the various little incidents of each dav. 


KATE'S CAMEOS. 


195 


carefully putting out of sight the annoyances that 
could not fail to be painfully felt — the long ride in the 
crowded car, where some insolent fellow boldly stared 
her out of countenance, the fatigue of standing hour 
after hour, repeating the same information to fresh 
listeners — and telling her dear ones the rare delight 
she experienced when she could sometimes slip into 
Memorial Hall and forget past, present and future in 
gazing at its treasures of art. 

She was one day seated before one of her favorite 
pictures, “My lady is a widow and childless,’* 
watching with earnest eyes the sad, yearning expres- 
sion of the fair face framed in a widow’s cap, turned 
toward the merry, happy laborer’s family outside 
the wall of her wide park, when a group of fashion- 
ably-dressed people passed rapidly, and a woman’s 
voice, whose tones seemed strangely familiar, 
cried : 

“Make haste, Ross; I want to see the ‘Marriage 
of the Prince of Wales.’ I think it’s in the next 
room.” 

“Why, Adele, we’ve seen so many prints of it that 
it has grown as familiar and tiresome as the most 
hackneyed tune ever ground out of a hand-organ,” 
replied a voice that banished every tinge of color 
from Kate’s face. 

She looked up — the group was just passing 
through the crowded doorway some twenty paces 


19G 


. LOKKLKI AND OTHER STORIES. 


from wliere she sat; Ross Dunmore’s head towered 
above the throng. He turned at the entrance; their 
e^’-es met — she saw his flash with a sudden light, saw 
him make a hasty movement, and without an 
instant’s paUvSe fled, escaping from the building long 
ere he could have disengaged himself from the crowd 
to follow, had that been his wish. 

Wish? Why should he seek her? What excuse 
could he offer for his desertion? What could an 
interview avail, save to rouse bitter pain, and 
Kate’s pride was once more in arms— she would 
have died rather than give him one glimpse of her 
heart. 

Panting for breath and deadly pale she regained 
her post, to spend a day of torture, watching for 
every footstep, listening for every voice, that she 
might have time to escape Ross Dunmore’s 
approach; but the hours dragged slowly on till six 
o’clock, without any fresh cause of alarm, and she 
was at last released. Doubless he had not recog- 
nized her, but merely been startled by some fancied 
resemblance. He would not have expected to find 
proud Kate Vaughn, his “Queen Katherine,” an 
exhibitor at the World’s Fair. 

Again days passed monotonously along, and again 
Kate ceased to watch anxiously for a well-known 
face. She would be safe while summer lasted. Ross 
Dunmore no doubt was bathing at Newport, or 


Kate’s cameos. 


197 


promenading with some belle at Saratoga; 
some new “ beauty and heiress,” Kate thought, bit- 
terly. 

The scorching July days passed slowly away, the 
heat was almost unbearable. Kate’s health and 
spirits failed, but she still wrote brave, cheer- 
ful letters to the sisters in the little cottage. She 
“was perfectly well; the buildings were so large 
that the heat was not so very much felt,” she 
replied to their anxious inquiries, entreaties to “give 
up that wretched place and come home,” and Maud’s 
angry remonstrances and reproaches. 

At last, partly to satisfy these entreaties, partly 
because she could never quite shake off her fear of 
another accidental meeting with Ross Dunmore, and 
partly because sudden attacks of faintness warned 
her that the deadly heats of summer were undermin- 
ing her health, the health so precious to every 
“working woman,” she wrote that she would join 
them in the cottage as soon as the cameos were sold. 
“Two thousand dollars is the price fixed upon 
them,” she added, “and if somebody will open his 
purse-strings. I’ll stop being the avaricious little 
miser you call me, and come home to rest a few 
weeks, till we can decide what is next to be done — 
open a shop, perhaps, and use the two thousand dol- 
lars to stock it. Then I can turn the little experience 
I’ve gained this summer to account.” 


198 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


The day after this letter was written cooler breezes 
brought refreshment to the gasping denizens of the 
city, and a larger number of visitors than usual 
thronged the Exhibition buildings. Kate was stand- 
ing at one end of the pavilion, replying for the 
thousandth time to a question about the value of 
the largest of the diamond dew-drops quivering on 
their golden stems, when Adele Tremaine’s voice — 
strange how she had learned to shiver at its tones — 
cried, behind her: 

“Oh! here’s Sullivan’s at last, Mr. Trevor! Ross 
and I hunted everywhere for it when we were here a 
few weeks ago; but it’s a little out of sight. Every- 
body at Long Branch has been talking about the 
exquisite cameos — you know Sullivan is said to have 
better taste in selecting and setting gems than any 
jeweler in this country — so 1 determined to take 
advantage of the cool weather and come to the city 
for a day. Ross, the mean fellow, wouldn’t 
escort me.” 

“You can’t expect me to feel very indignant with 
him on that score, since it afforded me the pleasure 
of coming in his place,” replied her companion, smil- 
ing; “and now. Miss Tremaine, let us examine the 
wonderful gems that have tempted us to exchange 
the cool breezes of Long Branch for this warmest of 
cities.” 


:tATE*S CAMEOS. 


199 


The mist that had dimmed Kate’s eyes cleared 
away, aod she unconsciously uttered a sigh of relief. 
Ross was not here, and perhaps Adele might not 
notice her. She was standing at the other end of 
the pavilion exclaiming over the cameos, and inquir- 
ing the prices of the gentlemanly clerk who shared 
Kate’s labors. “Two thousand dollars! Quite 
beyond my purse,” Kate heard her say; and her com- 
panion, who was evidently on very intimate terms, 
replied : 

“Tell Ross how much you admire them; they 
would be a charming present for a certain occa- 
sion.” 

“Which perhaps will exist only in the imagination 
of our dear five hundred friends,” returned the lady 
with a coquettish laugh. 

Kate involuntarily turned, and their eyes met. 
Adele Tremaine started violently, her face flushed 
crimson; but she vouchsafed no sign of recognition. 
This was the first time anyone had given Miss 
Vaughn cause to feel her altered position; few of her 
fashionable acquaintances had visited the Exhibi- 
tion during the summer, and not one had shown 
proof of such utter want of heart. 

Yet the flush, the haste with which, accompanied 
by her companion — a total stranger to Kate — Adele 
left the pavilion, seemed more like fear than pride. 
Kate often found herself pondering over the strange. 


200 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


startled look that had flashed across Adele’s face 
and wondering at its meaning. 

Two days after, when the heat had returned with 
still greater intensity, Kate walked wearily down 
the long hall to the pavilion, and was eagerly 
greeted by her companion. 

“I have pleasant news for you this morning, Miss 
Vaughn; the cameos are sold! ” he exclaimed. 

“Sold 1 ’’ cried Kate, her pale face flushing with joy 
at the thought of an escape from the heat and din 
which, with her fast-failing strength, were speedily 
becoming actual torture to her sensitive nerves. 

“Yes, and the gentleman paid for them at once, 
and left his address. I believe,” he continued, smil- 
ing, “ they must be intended for a wedding present, 
he seemed so anxious to secure them. Here is the 
card.” 

He held out the slip of pasteboard. The letters 
danced before Kate’s eyes. RossDunmore! So it 
was true. The “certain occasion” to which she had 
heard Adele Tremaine’s companion significantly 
allude, was his marriage. The cameos, Aer cameos, 
were to be his wedding-gift to his bride, to Adele, 
This wms too much to bear. Her heart throbbed till 
she felt as if she were suffocating, her eyes grew dim, 
everything whirled in dizzy circles around her, and 
she heard, as if at a great distance, a voice offering 
her a chair. Controlling herself by a violent effort, 


Kate’s cameos. 


201 


she tried to collect her failing senses ; gradually the 
faintness passed awaj^ and she gratefully accepted 
her fellow-clerk’s offer to procure a glass of water, 
glad to be left a few moments to her own thoughts. 
But it seemed to her that scarcely’ an instant had 
elapsed when he again stood before her. Without 
glancing up, she mechanically held out her hand for 
the goblet — it was clasped in a close, warm pres- 
sure. She indignantly looked up — into Ross Dun- 
more’s eyes. 

“Kate! Kate!” he exclaimed, in the low, fond 
tones she so well remembered, “My darling, have I 
found you at last? How could you leave me with- 
out one line, one word of farewell? Ever since you 
vanished like a wraith that evening in Rome, I have 
searched in vain ; the earth seemed to have swal- 
lowed you up. My darling, how eould you let your 
pride come between us — insult me b}" imagining Ross 
Dunmore sought 3’ou for your fortune, not yourself? 
You have given me a bitter trial, but you, too, have 
suffered, dear, for you love me, Kate; you confessed 
it the night before we parted. Do 3'ou think I will 
ever give j^ou back your word ? ” 

Kate stood gazing at him in utter bewilderment; 
at last her white lips murmured: “The letter! You 
never had my letter! ” 

“What letter?” 


203 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“ The letter I wrote in Rome before I left. I gave 
it to Miss Tremaine. Oh! Ross, Ross, is it really 
true? You did not wilfully desert me — are not 
engaged to Adele Tremaine ? ” 

Ross Dunmore gazed at her in speechless astonish- 
ment. “A letter? You gave Adele Tremaine a let- 
ter for me? She dared— oh! if she were not a 
woman, if I could call her to an account for this 
treachery. I see it all now; her sweet sympath}’, 
her suggestions that you might have gone here or 
there. But how could I suspect a lady, my own 
cousin, of such baseness? But strangely enough,” 
he continued, “it was through her I found you at 
last. Queen Katherine.” 

At this moment Mr. Sullivan’s clerk came up with 
the glass of water, the lovers hastily strove to con- 
ceal their agitation and assume the air of unconcern 
which the nineteenth century, emulating the stoicism 
of the Indians, considers the acme of good breeding, 
and the effort was so eminently successful that the 
young man saw only that Miss Vaughn had unex- 
pectedly met an old friend, and good-naturedly 
offered to remain alone in the pavilion if she wished 
to walk through the Exhibition with him. 

They quickly sought a distant corner of Memorial 
Hall, which at this early hour was almost empty, 
and there mutual explanations were given. 


KATE’S CAMEOS. 


203 


Mr. Trevor, on his return to Long Branch, had 
joined Adele in her enthusiastic praises of the cameos 
with so much eagerness that Ross asked some care- 
less questions about them. Adele replied by giving a 
minute description of the peculiar design, and Ross, 
noting the resemblance to the set purchased by Kate 
in Rome, felt his heart thrill with a wild hope. Leav- 
ing Long Branch by the first train, he instantly 
sought Mr. Sullivan’s pavilion, recognized the 
jewels, and by cautious questions drew from the 
clerk all he knew about the matter. Then, retir- 
ing some little distance, he watched for Kate’s 
arrival, and approached as soon as she was left 
alone. 

“I stood so long behind the case of jewelry,” he 
concluded, “that I really believe the exhibitor 
thought I had designs on his wares, for he never 
took his eyes from me. But I was no thief ; I only 
want the jewel that belongs to me, my very own — 
are you not, Kate ? ” 

The look with which Kate raised her blue eyes to 
his appeared to be a sufficient answer. 

That very evening the inmates of the little cottage 
in Westchester county rushed out in delight to wel- 
come their beloved Kate, who was assisted from the 
carriage by a tall stranger, a stranger, however, 
who quickly became at home in the family circle, 
where the discussions, instead of turning upon the 


204 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


best locations for a small shop, were devoted to 
solving the question of how speedily arrangements 
could be made for a quiet wedding. At this wed- 
ding, in spite of the plea that such superb gems 
would be quite unsuited to her simple traveling 
dress, everybody insisted that the bride’s ornaments 
should be the most magnificent jewels exhibited at 
the Centennial — Kate’s cameos. 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


4 

























THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


The fair of St. Mary Magdalen in July, 1877, had 
drawn even more than its wonted throng of peas- 
ants from the villages perched among the crags of 
the Apennine chain, villages whose origin dated back 
to the ninth and tenth centuries, and whose inhabit- 
ants had fought in the fierce frays of Guelphs and 
Ghibellines. Even now, half hidden among the 
hardy chestnut trees or crowning some jagged 
mountain peak, they were inaccessible to the modern 
tourist unless he was willing to abjure the comfort 
of a traveling carriage and scramble a-foot or on the 
back of a trusty donkey up the rough roads leading 
to these ancient fastnesses of robber knights. 

On this day each hamlet was deserted by all save 
those whom age or physical weakness — the latter a 
rare case in the pure air of these lofty heights — had 
debarred from the great rural merry-making of the 
year. From early dawn groups of bright-eyed peas- 
ant lads and lasses, sturdy old men and women and 
rosy-cheeked children had thronged every rugged 


208 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


path, all floching toward the same goal, the fair of 
St. Mary Magdalen, where strings of onions, figs, 
tomatoes, homespun yarn, colored handkerchiefs, 
straw hats, and a motley collection of various cheap 
trinkets were offered for sale. 

By noon the din of traffic was at its height, vocif- 
erations in every key resounded on all sides, the 
shrill squeaking of a fiddle from a booth where 
burattinl were performing sanguinary melo-dramas 
or screaming farces in the same ridiculous series of 
jerks, blended with the medley of noises in the mar- 
ket-place and lured a portion of the crowd. The 
peasant costumes, now fast disappearing from 
Italian cities, were so universal among these moun- 
taineers that two young men who mingled among 
them to watch the picturesque scene were every- 
w'^ere conspicuous. Unmistakably English, they 
were as unmistakably gentlemen, and though the 
eyes, hair, and complexion of one were many shades 
darker than those of his companion, a certain 
resemblance in the general contour of the features 
would have led the most careless observer to sup- 
pose them kinsmen. 

The surmise would have been correct. Vivian, 
Earl of Estmere, and the Honorable Bertram Grey 
were cousins, and from earliest childhood had been 
united in so close a friendship that at Eton and 
Oxford they were as often hailed by the names of 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


209 


Damon and Pytliias as their own propercognomens. 
Vivian Estmere’s fair hair, bright blue eyes, and 
sunny smile made him appear several years younger 
than the darker, graver cousin, who was in reality 
two months his junior, and, though the only child 
of a widowed mother, his frank, winning nature had 
borne him through the ordeal of her unlimited 
indulgence with no worse consequences than a most 
earnest determination to have his own way, and a 
tendency to somewhat eccentric caprices, very par- 
donable faults in the heir to one of the finest estates 
in England. 

The two young men had left England six weeks 
before, taken a walking excursion through the 
Black Forest, climbed several Swiss mountains, then, 
to gratify one of Vivian’s sudden fancies, gone down 
to Rome, and afterward visited the Apennine region, 
intending thence slowly to pursue their way home- 
ward. Vivian Estmere had an intense love for art, 
and possessed talent very closely bordering upon 
genius, talent which, if united to the close applica- 
tion needed to obtain any substantial result, would 
have won him a name among the eminent artists of 
his generation. As it was he dabbled in oils and 
water colors, produced very charming landscapes 
and dainty figures of exquisitely attired ladies feed- 
ing macaws or reading love letters, after the manner 
of the French school, pictures that hung in the 

It 


210 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


boudoir of many a fair Belgravian dame, but always 
fell far short of his real powers. During the present 
ourney he had enriched his sketch-book with numer- 
ous charming bits of scenery, but the visit to Rome, 
where he hoped to obtain a model for a large paint- 
ing, had resulted .in disappointment. 

The rural fair, of which they chanced to hear on 
their return, aroused Vivian’s curiosity, and as the 
3’oung men were among the favored few who have 
no occasion to “take note of time,” they delayed a 
few hours to visit it. The motley throng of peasants 
eagerly chaffering over their cheap wares soon ceased 
to afford amusement, and they were slowly making 
their way out of the crowd when Vivian seized his 
companion’s arm, exclaiming breathlessly: 

“By Jove! Bertram, look yonder; did you ever see 
any creature so beautiful as that girl? ” 

Bertram Grey followed the direction of his com 
panion’s eyes and silently nodded assent. 

The girl indeed possessed one of those faces seen 
perhaps once in a lifetime, whose beauty is no more 
to be denied than any other self-evident fact, faces 
which seem created to show us how far nature’s cun- 
ning can surpass the highest achievements of art. 
Barely sixteen, her figure was faultless in symmetry 
and grace, while her features were of the purest 
Greek t3’'pe; their perfection might have challenged 
comparison with the finest masterpieces of sculpture 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


211 


in the Vatican. Masses of purple-black hair, drawn 
back from the low, broad forehead, fell in heavy 
braids below her waist, their dusky hue relieved by a 
single pomegranate blossom, and through the clear 
olive of her cheek the bright blood shone like flame. 
It was the very perfection of physical beauty, lea\- 
ing nothing in form or hue to be desired. 

Estmere drew a long breath. “Ah, if I could but 
put her on canvas just as she stands I would be sure 
of a place in the exhibition. I must secure her for a 
model. Aly good angel sent me here this morning. 
Did you ever see any human being half so lovely? 
Why, the Mona Lisa herself sinks into insignificance 
beside that face.” 

“Impious wretch! ” laughed Bertram. “To com- 
pare a simple peasant girl with beauty that has 
claimed the world’s admiration for centuries! Come, 
it’s long past noon and I’m beginning to feel most 
unromantically hungry. Let us go to the osteria 
and see what can be had for dinner.” 

“Do n’t wait for me. Order it yourself and I’ll join 
you in half an hour. I must try to sketch those 
features.” 

“Take care not to rouse the jealousy of the dark- 
eyed young fellow with the falcon’s wing in his felt 
hat who stands by her side. They say that among 
these mountains the manners of the ninth century 
haven’t wholly given place to those of the nine- 


212 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


teenth, and you might chance to make acquaintance 
with the blade of his dagger.” 

Vivian laughed gaily. “Never fear. I don’t mean 
to supply the newspapers with a sensational item. 
See what the osteria can produce in the shape of a 
dinner and I’ll be ready to share it in half an hour.” 

Bertram, knowing by long experience the futility of 
opposing any of Vivian’s whims, left him and con- 
tinued his way through the crowd, past the booth 
of burattini, near which the beautiful girl and her 
companion were standing, to the little osteria, 
where he ordered dinner, but put small faith in the 
ready *‘Seguro, signor, seguro,” which answered his 
request that it should be served in half an hour. 

Going up to the room that had been assigned their 
“exce//en2^as” he glanced over the pages of a novel, 
vaguely conscious of the hum of voices rising from 
the little piazza, and sounding far more musical thus 
softened by distance till, lulled by its soporific pow’er, 
combined with a lengthy and particularly dull con- 
versation in the book he was reading, he fell 
asleep. 

When roused by the clatter of dishes outside his 
door announcing the arrival of dinner, his first 
glance at the lengthening shadows betrayed the fact 
that the allotted half hour must have long since 
passed. The hum of voices was fainter, the little 
piazza far less crowded. Many of the peasants were 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


213 


doubtless already on their way to their crag-built 
homes, treasuring a fresh store of memories with 
which to while away the long days of the coming 
winter when the fierce winds sweeping over the 
peaks and the dense snows filling the mountain 
gorges would form impassable barriers around each 
village till the soft fingers of spring released the pris- 
oners. Bertram hastily looked at his watch. Six 
o’clock ! Where could Vivian be ? ” 

Ere the vague wonder rising in his mind coulc 
become actual anxiety, Vivian’s quick, light step was 
heard on the stair and he entered the room just as 
the first dish was placed on the table. During the 
meal he chatted gaily about the fair, the feats of the 
burattini, the eager chaffering he had witnessed over 
a string of onions, but said no word of the wonder- 
ful peasant beauty. At last the dishes were removed, 
the waiter retired, and as the summer twilight began 
to creep slowly into the room the two young men 
lighted cigars, and while Vivian lounged carelessly 
in his chair Bertram stood at the window watching 
the last groups vanish from the piazza. 

“Just imagine people so primitive as to look upon 
this festa as the one great event of the year, living 
on its memory when walled up by the snow all win- 
ter in their eyries among the cliffs. I’ve just been 
talking to the village priest, and he tells me many of 
them have come miles and miles from Apennine ham- 


214 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


lets, far from any highway, and will return to-night, 
walking every step of the way. Women and little 
children, too! What hard lives half ^e world 
lead!” 

“I don’t know,” replied Bertram slowly, without 
turning from the window. “I’m not so sure that 
these sturdy mountaineers are not happier than we, 
born to the wants and needs of our complex civiliza- 
tion. Their scanty harvest gives them a support, 
poor indeed in our eyes, but all they have ever 
known, and if one of them wishes to marry the girl 
he loves” — here a faint touch of bitterness stole into 
histone — “no considerations concerning suitability 
of fortune need creep in to mar the happiness of their 
lives.” 

“Which, being interpreted, means Violet Vane,” 
remarked Vivian quietly. 

Bertram swung swiftly round, facing him. His 
dark face was flushed, his eyes blazed with a passion- 
ate light. 

“You have no right,” he began hotly, but ere he 
could finish the sentence Vivian interrupted him. 

“ No right to use my eyes ? Hear me out, old fel- 
low,” he continued, laying his hand affectionately on 
his cousin’s shoulder. “ This has been in my mind a 
long time— ever since you offered to come with me on 
this ‘trip — and I’ve determined to say my say 
to-night. You can no more get rid of me than if I 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


215 


were the ‘Aneient Aiariner’ himself,” he added, 
assuming a jesting tone that ill concealed the real 
earnestness beneath. “First, it is you, not I, who 
love Violet.” 

“A pleasant thing for , me to hear,” almost 
groaned Bertram, “when it is jrou, not /, who will 
marry her.” 

“That is not so certain, though it is my mother’s 
dearest wish. As you know, Violet is the daughter 
of her most intimate friend, and since her parents’ 
death has lived at Estmere Hall. I admit all her 
charms, nay, will own that I never saw so beautiful 
a face — until to-day,” he added, murmuring the last 
words under his breath, but Bertram’s quick ear 
caught their meaning. “Yet while I acknowledge all 
the loveliness and grace my mother constantly 
praises, she has no more power to make my heart 
beat one throb quicker than if she were really the 
sister she always seems. I should never think of 
treasuring withered violets she had given me, or 
wearing next my heart a cast-oft' glove— as wiser 
men than I have done.” He paused, casting a laugh- 
ing glance at his cousin, beneath which Bertram 
again flushed hotly. “Thank God,” he continued^ 
the jesting manner changing to one of unusual 
earnestness, “that I discovered your secret in time. 
Violet was growing lovelier every day. My mother 
constantly urged me to marry her, and I really had 


216 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


no reason for delay. For years it had been tacitly 
understood that she was to become my wife, yet no 
spoken promise bound us. You remember Lady 
Trevor’s ball? How lovely she looked that night in 
her white dress trimmed with garlands of violets, 
which just suited her blue eyes and golden hair. We 
had been waltzing together and strolled into the con- 
servatory. The fateful question was on my lips 
when the music stopped and you came to claim her 
for the next quadrille. She had dropped some violets 
from her bouquet. I saw you stop, raise them, press 
them to your lips, divined your secret, and resolved 
to leave the question unasked. That night I made 
up my mind to spend the summer on the continent. 
You generously offered to accompany me — ” 

“Don’t call me generous,” interrupted Bertram 
hoarsely. “I dared not stay, lest I should forfeit all 
claim to be ranked among honorable men.” 

Vivian warmly grasped his hand. “Dear old fel- 
low! Now listen to my proposal. It has been in 
my mind ever since we started, but I could never 
quite bring myself to make it. I suppose because 
everything suddenly doubles its value as it passes 
beyond our reach, and I have never been so near lov- 
ing Violet as when I have tried to tell you that you 
had my full and free consent — full and free, remember 
— to do your best to win her for your wife.” 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


217 


There was a death-like stillness in the room. 
Bertram Grey was too much moved for speech. At 
last he said resolutely: 

“No, no, Vivian, you shall not sacrifice yourself. I 
could not enjoy my happiness if purchased at the 
expense of yours.” Then with a sudden impetuosity 
that formed a strange contrast to his former quiet 
tone he exclaimed : “It is impossible that you should 
not love Violet. No man could live with her daily 
and still be heart-whole.” 

“Behold a marvel of the age, then,” answered 
Vivian, laughing. “No, Bertram; my resolution is 
made. This is the last of July. I give you three 
months. If in that time you can win Violet no one 
will congratulate you more heartily than I; if not” — 
he hesitated, then continued slowly, “why, I must 
suppose she has given her love to me, and should be 
no gentleman if, having won, I failed to elaim it. 
But at least there could be no cloud between ns, 
Bertram. I should be sure I had not stood in the 
way of your happiness.” 

“There could be no cloud between us in any case,” 
answered Bertram simply. 

“But perhaps” — and even amid his own conflict of 
feeling Bertram noticed with surprise the sudden 
brightening of his friend’s countenance — “perhaps 
you know that Violet loves you ? ” 

“I have never dared ask mvself the question.” 


218 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


“Then you must ‘put your fortune to the touch.’ 
Better set off for England at once. I give you only 
three months’ time, remember.” 

“I am quite ready,” answered Bertram. “Sup- 
pose we leave to-night. The moon is full, and wc 
can take post-horses.” 

“But I am not going,” returned Vivian, quietly. 

“Not going? ” exclaimed Bertram in amazement. 

“Not going,” repeated Vivian calmly, but with a 
peculiar compression of the lips under his blonde 
moustache that always warned those who knew him 
best of the folly of remonstrance. 

“Then you intend to carry out our plan of travel- 
ing leisurely homeward byway of the Rhine? ” 

“Not at all. I intend to stay here.” 

“Here? ” exclaimed Bertram. “What in the name 
of wonder — ” 

“Do I propose to do?” interrupted Vivian, his 
gay blue eyes alight with sudden laughter at his 
companion’s bewilderment. “I will tell you. The 
first real work of my life. I mean to spend these 
three months in finding out whether I possess anj' of 
the stuff of which artists are made. If I have, good- 
bye dilettanti toymg with brush and palette. If 
not — ” he paused, the mirth in his eyes fading into a 
melancholy that made the bright face years older — 
“why I shall learn that my dreams of fame were 
only dreams and try to content myself with the 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


219 


sober realities of life. But I can’t fail,” he cried with 
sudden animation. “Such a model as that girl 
would inspire a statue. When I think of the stupid 
automatons on the Spanish Stairs, hired season 
after season by one artist after another to serve for 
St. Joseph or Belisarius, Cleopatra or a Madonna, 
as the case may be, and compare them with her 
faultless beauty, I am lost in wonder at my own 
good luck. Congratulate me, old fellow. The fates 
don’t often favor a man so far.” 

“You at least have had no reason to complain,” 
replied Bertram, looking at the joyous, handsome 
face. “There have been few crumpled rose leaves in 
your couch. But how did you manage to secure the 
young girl for a model? I suppose it was 
hardly on the strength of your ‘bonnie blue een’ 
that she consented.” 

“No,” with a laugh and a faint flush. “It was 
partly, I believe, to spite the dark-browed moun- 
taineer. When I broached the question in the best 
Italian I could muster she at first refused, but apeas- 
ant woman near her from the same village cried : 

“‘Thou’rt a foolish child, Beata, not to oblige the 
signor. It’s an easier way to earn scudi for the blind 
grandmother at home than to help gather the chest- 
nut harvest for Tomaso’s father, who’s a hard mas- 
ter, we all know. I’m sure he might copy all our 
faces, from the old grandfather down to my bambino. 


220 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Pietro, for half the shining silver he has offered 
thee.’ 

“The girl hesitated a moment, but before she could 
ansv-^er, Tomaso, with a scowl that would have 
made his fortune as a heavy villain on the stage, 
cried rudely : 

“‘Hold thy chattering tongue, Bianca, it’s naught 
to thee. Beata won’t sell her face for a few paltry 
scudi, like the bold wenches in Rome. I stand in my 
father’s place and I’ll not give her leave — ’ 

“ The young girl flashed a withering look at him. 

“‘TAou wilt not give me leave! How long has 
Beata Chiavelli been forced to ask leave of thee?* 

“The fellow actually cowered, but darted a glance 
at me that brought to mind your warning words 
about the dagger. Little I cared for his jealous fury, 
as you may imagine, though I heard him grind his 
teeth and mutter various choice Italian oaths as I 
walked away with the lovely Beata to conclude 
arrangements for the sittings. My fair model dwells 
in one of the most inaccessible of the villages perched 
on these Apennine cliffs, three long hours’ climb from 
here. My experience with the Alpine staff will stand 
me in good stead now.” 

“ But why not have her come down to the osteria? ” 
asked Bertram. 

“I should as soon think of asking one of the god- 
desses to descend from Olympus. Why, man, you 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


221 


talk as if she were one of the models on the ‘Spanish 
Stairs.’ It is a piece of the rarest good fortune to 
get her on any terms, and I shrewdly suspect yonder 
handsome mountaineer’s rough interference had 
more to do with her consent than either my 
entreaties or the ‘blind grandmother at home.’ 
Women are much the same the world over.” 

Bertram shook his head, but made no reply. 

“Besides, I shall enjoy the scramble up the heights, 
the mountain air is like a draught of champagne, 
the very elixir of life, and I shall get wonderful 
effects of sunrise flushing these pinnacles of snow, 
and sunsets flaming through the chestnut woods 
that overhang every yawning chasm. It will be a 
delightful experience.” 

Bertram paced restlessly up and dov^rn the room. 
A feeling of vague anxiety filled his mind, yet he knew 
the sole result of its expression would be to 
strengthen Vivian’s determination to carry out this 
new caprice. He sighed heavily, approached his 
friend, put both hands on his shoulders and gazed 
earnestly into the gay blue eyes. 

“Vivian, if any harm should come of this plan, I 
should never forgive myself for accepting your gen- 
erous offer.” 

“What nonsense, dear old fellow ! Harm ! Do you 
expect me to tumble over a precipice or fall a victim 
to black-browed Tomaso’s dagger? As for my gen- 


222 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


erosity, let no thought of my loss mar your joy if 
you win Violet. I will be perfectly frank; my love 
for her is only a brother’s affection, and though it 
might be fanned into a warmer feeling, at present 

‘My passion, matched with thine, 

Is as moonlight unto sunlight, or as water unto wine.’ 

May our imperious laureate pardon me for varjdng 
the lines to suit the situation. Off with you as fast 
as post-horses can travel, and leave me to my moun- 
tain solitudes. Remember, I grant 3^ou only three 
months; when the brown chestnut burrs begin to 
patter down in the forests I shall look for your let- 
ter.” 

“At least let me send William,” began Bertram, 
but was interrupted by a peal of laughter from 
Vivian. 

“My most respectable valet! What in the world 
would the poor fellow do here for three months, 
when we wouldn’t even take him to look after the 
luggage ou our trip? Really, Bertram, I shall begin 
to think love has turned your brain, if you make any 
more absurd suggestions. One would imagine I was 
in a nest of bandits, instead of a respectable ostcria 
in a pleasant little mountain village, that will settle 
into its wonted quiet till the next fair day comes 
round. Our fates will be decided by that time. God 


THE EAST OF THEIR LINE. 


223 


grant they may be happy ones,” he added with sud- 
den earnestness. 

An hour later, thanks to the liberal use of English 
gold, Bertram Grey sat leaning back in a post-chaise, 
so absorbed in anticipations of his own coming hap- 
piness in seeing Violet’s fair face again and anxiety 
concerning the result of Vivian’s new whim, that he 
had no eyes for the magnificent panorama through 
which he was swiftly passing. 

The full moon, sailing through a cloudless sky, 
flooded the rugged peaks with silvery light, shim- 
mered on the chestnut woods clothing the mountain 
slopes and sparkled on the streams winding at the 
base of the towering cliffs, their banks bordered with 
white poplars, whose bark shone with a spectral 
lustre in contrast with the darker belts of foliage. 

In vain, the traveler paid no heed to the loveliness 
of nature; his mind was wholly engrossed by 
thoughts of Violet and Vivian, and long after the lat- 
ter, spite of his hard bed, — the best the little osteria 
could afford its distinguished visitor, — was lost in 
dreams of future fame and the beautiful Beatn, 
Bertram, oppressed with shapeless forebodings that 
banished sleep, was whirled onward toward the 
nearest railway station through the silent splendor 
of the Italian night. 

The first flush of early dawn the following morn- 
ing found Vivian Estmere — a sturdy peasant lad 


224 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


trudging hj liis side to act as guide and carry his 
easel— climbing the steep paths that seemed scarce fit 
for any creature less sure-footed than the mountain 
goats toward the little hamlet of La Luparini, 
perched like an eagle’s eyrie on a lofty crag. But the 
agile young Englishman heeded neither the rough- 
ness nor the length of the way; his artist eyes were 
feasting on scenes of beauty, than which earth can 
offer nothing lovelier — deep gorges draped with 
climbing vines, undulating ridges clothed with chest- 
nut forests, towering pinnacles of rugged granite 
thrusting themselves abruptly into the clear blue 
depths of the Italian heavens, and still further away, 
glimmering dimly through the purple haze, the dis- 
tant peaks of the Carrara Alps. 

Higher and higher the two companions toiled; 
before them, separated by a narrow ravine, rose two 
lofty summits, as if some cataclysm in primeval days 
had cleft the solid mountain in twain. The peasant 
boy pointed to the crag on the right, and Vivian, 
following with his eyes the direction of the chubby 
forefinger, saw, rising above a wall, whose rude 
masonry seemed. a portion of the cliff itself, several 
roofs dominated by a crumbling tower, doubtless 
once the abode of some petty feudal lord, around 
whom his humbler neighbors huddled for protec- 
tion. 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


^225 


Another half hour’s steady climbing brought them 
to their destination, the little village of La Luparini, 
perched so near the edge of the chasm that ahundred 
paces from the rude gateway there was scarce six 
feet of space between the masonry and the yawning 
depths below. A tangle of trailing vines clustered 
over the low stone arch, through which Vivian and 
Beppo passed into the one steep narrow street of the 
hamlet, lined on either side by rough stone houses 
for the most part destitute of other windows than 
apertures in the wall, closed when occasion required 
by heavy shutters. At the door sat dark-eyed, dark- 
haired women, looking up from distaff and spindle 
to gaze wonderingly at the stalwart, blonde English- 
man, while little children played about their feet. 
Not a man was visible, all had gone to till the fields 
or vineyards hidden away on some sunny slope amid 
the dark chestnut woods. 

Asking a question here and there Beppo walked 
steadily on, passing house after house, till, at the 
very end of the street, they reached the ruined tower. 
Nearly roofless, its one habitable room was the sole 
shelter left the last descendant of a line of petty 
nobles who had lived in this lofty eyrie for ten 
centuries. Vines and moss had taken root in every 
aperture, trailing even over the vaulted doorway, 
through which the sunlight now poured, revealing 
the dim interior, where Beata’s blind grandmother, a 

. 15 


226 


LORKLEl AND OTHER STORIES. 


bent, withered crone, formed a striking foil to the 
peerless loveliness of the young girl, who stood lean- 
ing against a chair of richly-carved oak, black with 
age, whose back rose high above the old woman’s 
head. Vivian paused, spell-bound by the exquisite 
picture, and in that instant determined to cast aside 
his ambitious plan of painting Beata as Sappho and 
instead simply reproduce the scene before his eyes ; 
the doorway veiled by vines, the shadow of theleaves 
on the stone floor, Beata’s exquisite face and figure 
in the full glow of the sunshine, the gi'andmother’s 
withered features and bowed form in the dusky 
gloom. What a contrast between the radiance of 
youth and beauty and the decrepitude of age! The 
faces were cast in the same mould ; the artist’s keen 
eye discerned traces of former loveliness under the 
wrinkles of the crone. He would call the picture 
“The Last of Their Line.” Nothing more was 
needed than to place the group before him on canvas 
to be sure of an admiring crowd around it at the 
Exhibition. Fortune had favored him indeed. Who 
would have thought of finding such a miracle of 
beauty in a corner of the world so secluded as this 
Apennine hamlet? 

Vivian could have gazed on for hours, but his little 
guide darted forward calling Beata to come and .see 
the signor. 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


227 


The young girl stooped to whisper a few words to 
her grandmother, then turned toward the low door- 
way, already darkened by Vivian’s tall figure. The 
objeet of his visit had evidently been explained, and 
he soon succeeded in persuading the ancient dame to 
allow him to place her lace on his canvas beside her 
granddaughter’s; nay the request visibly pleased 
her. Vivian with secret amusement wondered if in 
some vague way she fancied the manes of the “pro- 
prieties,” the ghosts that haunt every English house- 
hold, would thus be propitiated, then almost laughed 
aloud at the absurdity of imagining any idea of 
chaperonage had penetrated to this remote moun- 
tain fastness. The easel was speedily put in the best 
light, and Vivian began to sketch the outline of the 
figures. Too much absorbed in his work for speech, 
the allotted hours passed rapidly away without the 
utterance of a word except to give directions for 
some change of attitude. Then he laid aside his 
brush and asked permission to leave easel and canvas 
in one corner of the spacious room. Consent was 
readily granted, and putting a bright gold piece into 
the old grandmother’s withered hand he bade Beata 
farewell, and with sturdy Beppo set out on his home- 
ward way down the steep paths and under the over- 
hanging chestnut boughs to the osteria. 

July merged into August, August into September- 
more than half the three months allowed Bertram 


228 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


had expired, but as yet his letters gave Vivian no 
hint of success or failure. Day after day the young 
nobleman climbed upward to the little hamlet; each 
foot of the rough paths had grown as familiar to him 
as to the mountain goats; the dark-eyed women sit- 
ting with their distaffs in tlie doorways of the old 
stone houses nodded and smiled as the tall English- 
man passed, sometimes pausing to pat the head of a 
brown-skinned bambino tottering on chubby legs 
along the steep street. Beata’s exquisite face was 
more beautiful than ever, with a smile of welcome 
sparkling in her lovely eyes. 

Grandmother and granddaughter treated him as if 
he were an old friend, rejoiced like children to hear 
stories of other lands and plied him with questions. 
To these secluded dwellers in the mountain village 
his tales of the great world beyond were like a 
glimpse of fairy-land. Estmere himself delighted in 
watching Beata’s beautiful e^^es dilate with wonder 
or flash with mirth. Utterly destitute of education, 
she was marvelously intelligent ; each day seemed to 
develop some new charm. Yet he dared not think of 
love; until he heard from Bertram was he not bound 
in honor to Violet? His present life was so full of 
happiness that he shrunk from any change. The 
dusky room in the erumbling tower with the shadow 
of the dancing vine leaves on its stone floor seemed 
as familiar and homelike as the stately suites of 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


229 


apartments in Estmere Hall; the scramble up the 
clifis in the bracing morning air, with the anticipa- 
tion of Beata’s welcoming smile a pleasure beyond 
anything the world had ever offered, yet he never 
paused to ask himself why. 

October was close at hand. Clusters of purple 
grapes hung in the vineyards; the farmhouses scat- 
tered over the level ground at the foot of the moun- 
tains were covered with yellow garlands of Indian 
corn drying in the hot sunshine ; the brown chest- 
nuts began to fall in the woods; still no decisive tid 
ings came from Bertram. 

Vivian’s portfolio had gradually filled with 
sketches of the Tuscan landscape — a lofty cliff with 
the river foaming at its base; a dark ravine over- 
hung with chestnut trees; a village crowning some 
rocky height, or the arched gateway of La Luparini, 
half concealed by vines. Here and there, too, appeared 
the face of some dark-eyed peasant woman or chubby 
bambino ; a dozen different studies of Beata’s grace- 
ful head, now crowned with vine leaves, a radiant 
Bacchante, now in the guise of some Greek goddess. 
The men of the village Vivian never saw. They had 
all gone to their work in fields or vineyards ere he 
reached La Luparini, and he always left the hamlet 
before the gathering shadows recalled them to their 
homes. He had wished to sketch handsome, sullen 
Tomaso, but when he chanced to speak of it to 


230 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Beata the young girl betrayed so much terror, 
besought him so earnestly to give up the plan, that 
he yielded, though unable to elicit any reason for her 
alarm. 

The picture was nearly completed — only a few 
touches more would be needed, and Vivian was well 
satisfied. His anticipations of its exquisite beaut}- 
were more than realized. It was the wonder and 
admiration of the village. Rarely could he work an 
hour without having the shadow’ of some dark-eyed 
peasant woman fall upon his canvas as she gave 
voluble expression to her amazement and delight. 

The most frequent visitor was Bianca, who had 
interposed in Vivian’s behalf at the fair, and by vir- 
tue of the act seemed to consider herself the special 
patron of the artist and his work. 

“Now, Beata,” she would cry triumphantly, 
“thou’lt admit Bianca gave good counsel when she 
told thee to do the signor’s bidding, since thy face 
has had the luck to please him. Never throw away 
the good fortune the Virgin sends. What sayest 
thou now? Isn’t this better than standing in the 
dripping rain, picking ujd chestnuts for that surly 
lad, Tomaso’s father, as thou didst last autumn 
when the saints bestowed all the rain of the year in 
the harvest season? Ah, well, we all know why 
Tomaso — there, there, don’t frown at me, Beata. 
I’ll say no more, only let the signor have a care — ” 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


231 


Here a sudden yell from baby Pietro, who, after 
the manner of toddling urchins, had managed to fall 
heavily on the stone floor, stopped the torrent of her 
eloquence, and diverted her thoughts. When she 
spoke again it was to ask when the picture would 
be finished. 

“Perhaps to-morrow,” replied Vivian. 

“Ah! then thou’lt have time to help gather the 
chestnut harvest after all, Beata,” cried Bianca 
eagerly. “In truth, child, the saints have shown 
thee special favor this year. Better send word to 
Tomaso at once. His father pays higher wages 
than any farmer in the neighborhood, and the lad 
was furious last night because of thy refusal to join 
the village girls he has engaged. He swore at me 
roundly as he passed for counseling thee to take the 
signor’s offer, and muttered threats till he was out 
of hearing. I saw him when I came up the street 
half an hour ago. Strange that he should leave the 
fields at this time, but doubtless he’s still hiring help 
for the harvest. They begin to gather next week, 
and-” 

“Saw him — here in the village? ” almost gasped 
Beata, her face deadly pale. 

“Why, what ails thee, child?” cried Bianca, 
laughing. “One would think thou hadst seen a 
ghost.” 


232 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Vivian hastily looked up. What could cause this 
strange fear of Tomaso ? She had answered the 
fellow boldly enough at the fair, refused to hire with 
him last evening, yet her very lips turned white at 
the bare mention of his name. Had he dared to use 
threats? Yes, it must be so, and learning that he 
was still in the village she fancied he was about to 
execute them. The cowardly rascal ! He would go 
in search of him. It was nearly time to leave, and 
the picture could wait a day longer. Hastily draw- 
ing a'cloth over the canvas, he took his hat, and 
with a few words of farewell left the tower. 

Rapidly as he walked he had scarcely crossed the 
few yards that separated Beata’s home from the 
first houses on the steep street ere the young girl 
was beside him. 

He glanced at her in surprise. Her olive cheek 
glowed and her dark ej^es drooped under his gaze as 
she faltered timidly : 

“I — I thought it would be pleasant to walk a little 
beyond the village with the signor.” 

Vivian was still more amazed. Never during the 
two months of his visit to La Luparini had he seen 
Beata outside the shelter of her crumbling tower. 
He would have found it easier to obtain a tete-a-tHe 
with the proudest Belgravian beauty. Yet now she 
voluntarily proffered her companionship, walking by 
his side with a swift, light step, but in perfect 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


233 


silence. At last they reached the arched gateway, 
eight feet in depth, dark and gloomy to eyes accus- 
tomed to the bright sunlight. As they entered Beata 
suddenly darted to the other side of her companion. 
Vivian glanced in the direction from which she had 
fled but saw nothing, then turning towards her, his 
eyes becoming more accustomed to the gloom, dis- 
tinguished a dark figure crouching so closely in the 
deepest shadow that but for Beata’s movement he 
would have passed it without heed. He strove in 
vain to distinguish the features shaded by a wide- 
brimmed hat like those worn by all mountaineers. 
The form did not stir. The next instant they 
emerged into the broad light of day. Beata uttered 
a sigh of relief. Glancing at her Vivian perceived 
that every trace of color had faded from her cheek. 
A sudden suspicion flashed through his mind, and he 
hastily turned back toward the gateway, now sev- 
eral yards behind them. Beata seized his arm. 

“No, no, signor, per amore di Dio.’* 

Vivian, unheeding her entreaty, rushed to the 
spot, but the figure had vanished. He turned to the 
young girl who had followed him. 

“Who was that, Beata?” 

She hesitated a moment, walking slowly away 
from the strong walls that had encircled the little 
mountain hamlet ever since the ninth century, when 
her stout ancestor, Giacomo Chiavelli, had built the 


234 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


tower whose ruined masonry now sheltered the last 
of his race. 

Vivian repeated his question. 

“Tomaso,” she at length answered reluctantly. 

“And you fear him, Beata?” 

“ Not for myself,” she replied proudly; then flush- 
ing scarlet, turned, darted swiftly back and vanished 
beneath the dark arch. 

Vivian slowly pursued his homeward way. To-day 
the loveliness of the Tuscan landscape was unheeded. 
In vain the river sparkled and foamed at the foot of 
the steep cliffs, in vain the western sky glowed with 
the crimson and gold of sunset. The light of a sud- 
den revelation had flashed into his mind. Beata 
loved him ! It was for his safety she feared; it was 
he whom Tomaso had threatened. Well, it behooved 
him to be on his guard henceforward and scan the 
vaulted gateway closely ere he entered. He did not 
care to end his days by a dagger thrust dealt in the 
dark. Perhaps Bertram’s warning was not so 
absurd after all. Then his thoughts swiftly reverted 
to Beata. How beautiful she was, how intelligent, 
how pure! Two j^ears’ instruction would make her 
fully equal to the task of holding her own with the 
fairest queens of English society — no one would sus- 
pect her origin. Her origin? Did not her lineage 
date back to the ninth century, while the Estmeres of 
Estmere Hall only emerged from obscurity in the 


THE LAST OF THEIK LINE. 


235 


days of Henry YlII? Yet wliat did it matter 
whether she were peasant or princess since he loved 
her, loved her with a depth of passion that made the 
thought of life without her far more bitter than 
death? Yes, he would at last be frank with himself. 
What had induced him to yield beautiful Violet Vane 
to his friend, baffle the dearest wish of an idolized 
mother? Not generosity to Bertram. He had vainly 
tried for months to utter the words spoken in the 
little osteria on the evening of the fair, and as he 
then said, never found himself so near loving Violet 
as when he sought to resign his claim to her hand. 
Not solely the desire to win fame as an artist, though 
hitherto he had deluded himself with the fancy, or 
rather studiously shut his eyes to the future that he 
might enjoy to the utmost the happiness of his pres- 
ent life, actually feeling a touch of irritation when 
letters from England recalled the outside world to 
his memory. 

No, he well knew that the sight of Beata standing 
near the booth where the hurattini were performing, 
had suddenly rendered it easy to spciik the words 
that had trembled on his lips for months; nay, that 
since Bertram’s departure his only fear had been that 
his friend might fail to win Violet’s heart. Until the 
letter came announcing his release, he was bound in 
honor by a tacit pledge. Of late Bertram had writ- 
ten hopefully, any da}^ might bring the welcome 


236 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


news, and tlien— a greeting from a passing peasant 
roused him from his reverie, and noticing the length- 
ening shadows he quickened his pace to reach the 
osteria. 

Entering his room, the first object that met his eyes 
was a letter addressed in his cousin’s well-known 
hand. 

Vivian’s breath came quick and short; one moment 
more and his destiny would be decided. Some 
instinct seemed to tell him that the innocent white 
envelope contained the sentence to a lifetime of hap- 
piness or misery. His hand fairly shook as he 
extended it toward the letter! What a horrible 
mockery of fate if the news that Violet loved him 
should reach him almost in the same hour Beata’s 
shame-flushed cheeks and downcast eyes had 
betrayed the secret of her innocent heart. He cursed 
the careless indifference with which he had permitted 
himself to drift into a tacit engagement with Violet. 
Perhaps his indolent acquiescence in his mother’s 
wishes had wrecked the happiness of three lives — his 
own, Bertram’s, and Beata’s. Or would the latter, 
when he had left La Luparini, find swift consolation 
from the dark-browed Tomaso? A fierce spasm of 
jealousy seized upon him, and he angrily tore the let- 
ter open. It contained but few words : 

“ God bless you a thousand times for the sacrifice you have 
made for my sake. Violet has consented to become my wife. No 


THE EAST OF THEIR LINE. 


237 


words can express my gratitude. The only thing wanting in my 
cup of joy is to see you once more and read in your eyes that you 
spoke nothing but the truth when you bade me God-speed in my 
efforts to win the loveliest girl in England. Leave your Apennine 
wilderness and come home at once to banish the haunting fear 
which, like Banquo’s ghost, will not down, the fear that 1 have- 
reared my happiness on the ruins of yours. 

“Always your faithful friend and brother, 

“Bertram.” 

Vivian drew a long breath. The sense of relief and 
joy that filled his heart first made him realize how 
sharp and keen had been his dread. How fair and 
bright the future stretched before him now!— the 
future he was free to share with Beata. They would 
travel a year or two; in that time her quick intelli- 
gence, under his training, would render her competent 
to run the gauntlet of the sharpest criticism. Well 
he knew there would be no lack of censors. Neither 
love nor wealth could shield the Countess of Estmere 
from the dagger thrusts with which society is ever 
ready to stab any intruder into the ranks of its 
charmed circle. He must see that her knowledge of 
even the airiest nothings that mark one “to the 
manor born ” was thorough enough to protect her 
from all shafts of malice. The task would be no dif- 
ficult one with love for tutor. 

How he longed for the moment when he could 
again read in Beata’s glorious eyes, in the swift 
blushes flaming through the clear olive of her cheek 


238 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


the confession of the love so innocentU’- betrayed 
that very day. Naj^, he might win her to utter it in 
the sweet accents of her Tuscan speech; honor no 
longer bound him to silence. To-morrow, early 
to-morrow morning, he would climb the path to the 
mountain eyrie. To-morrow! What an eternity of 
delay the few hours seemed ! His pulses were throb- 
bing with feverish excitement. Going to the window 
he threw it wide open to admit the cool evening air. 
The moon was just rising, flooding the little piazza 
with her silvery light. How beautiful it must be 
now among the rugged cliffs he daily climbed! 
Familiar with every phase of the landscape in the 
early morning and late afternoon, he had never seen 
it by moonlight. His evenings had hitherto been 
spent in faithful, earnest labor, as the number of 
sketches and studies of Beata in various attitudes 
and costumes could testify. The stillness of the 
night seemed to exert a soothing Influence on his 
restless mood; he longed to be out of doors. Seizing 
his hat and throwing a heavy cloak around him, for 
though the hour was yet early the air was sharp and 
chill, he hastily left the osteria. He had intended to 
go only a short distance, but lured by the wondrous 
beauty of the landscape, whose every charm was 
enhanced by the magic spell of the moonlight, wan- 
dered farther and farther along the paths now so 
familiar to his feet, ever tempted onby the wish to see 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


239 


some favorite scene transformed by the mellow 
lustre of the silvery rays. 

The gorges and ravines lay in blackest shadow, 
the heavy foliage of the chestnut forests formed inky 
masses along the mountain slopes, while the rippling 
waves of the streams flashed back the moonbeams, 
and the rugged cliffs stood out in strong relief 
against the clear sky. A little breeze blowing on 
these upper heights occasionally swept a fleecy cloud 
across the silver disk, dimming its radiance for a 
moment. 

Absorbed in the beauty that surrounded him and 
his own visions of the morrow, Vivian had taken no 
heed of distance, and suddenly started in surprise 
when, like the fairy palace of the Fata Morgana, the 
little hamlet of La Luparini and the twin summits 
of the cleft mountain rose before him. The rugged 
masonry of the encircling wall, still pierced with 
rude loop-holes and overlooked by the crumbling 
tower, seemed like the battlements of someenchanted 
city. How well he knew each feature of the magnifi- 
cent panorama visible from the height ! How fair 
the scene must be now ! Half an hour more and he 
could feast his eyes upon its matchless loveliness. 
Scarcely had the thought entered his mind ere he was 
breasting the steep ascent traversed for the first 
time more than two months ago under sturd}" 
Beppo’s guidance, Reaching the gateway of La 


240 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Luparini he turned to walk along the wall toward 
the cliff, whence he could obtain a view of miles of 
undulating ridges, rugged cliffs, chestnut forests 
overhanging gloomy precipices, with here and there a 
stream winding like a silver ribbon through fields 
and meadows or washing the base of some towering 
mountain peak. 

Just as he reached the point where the wall began 
to approach the cliff, leaving a space scarcely ten 
feet wide, whieh suddenly narrowed till the masonry 
rose from the sheer edge of the precipiee barely 
affording footing for a bird, a voice hoarse with pas- 
sion hissed into his ear : 

^^Maladetto! Cursed Inglese! So thou’rt cometo 
keep tr3^st with Beata. Keep it with all the fiends 
instead!” 

Thought is swift in moments of sudden peril. In 
the instant that Vivian turned to face the speaker 
his mind had grasped every detail of the situation, 
and he knew a life and death struggle was before 
him. Tomaso, infuriated to madness by the belief 
that he had surprised his rival in the aet of coming 
to an appointed meeting with Beata, would murder 
him in the fury of his passion with as little remorse 
as Vivian himself would have crushed an insect 
crawling in his path. 

Rapidlj' as the young Englishman had turned at 
the first words that reaehed his ear he did not 


THE EAST OF THEIR LEME. 


241 


wholly escape the blow that accompanied them. 
The blade of the descending weapon aimed at his 
heart grazed his shoulder. Wholly unarmed, his 
position seemed well nigh desperate. ' Standing on 
the triangle of land between the gateway and the 
cliff, scarcely ten feet broad at that spot, and nar- 
rowing thirty feet away to the verge of the precipice, 
there seemed but a choice between two modes of 
death, the dagger or a plunge over the rocks, to lie 
with mangled limbs a thousand feet below. 

Yet his presence of mind did not fail. The one 
shadow of hope was to rouse the villagers to his aid 
while keeping Tomaso at bay — the faintest of 
shadows indeed; but he was well skilled in the art of 
fencing; the loop-holes in the wall just above his 
head must be those of Bianca’s dwelling; he would 
at least try. 

Tomaso was six feet from him, his eyes sparkling 
with a cruel, cat-like gleam, his lithe body crouched 
in the act of springing forward. He saw his enemy 
at his mercy, on one side the sheer wall of masonry, 
on the other the cliff. He need only force him back- 
ward at the point of his dagger till the ten feet of 
earth narrowed to five, to three, to one, to inches, 
until at last losing his footing his foe fell, clutching 
vainly at the air, into the dark ravine below. The 
rich nobleman who had robbed him of his Beata 

should not live to triumph. 

16 


242 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


Revenge is sweet, and Tomaso paused to gloat 
over tlie sight of his rival. Would he plead for 
mercy, promise to give up Beata if his life were 
spared? Ah, then, perhaps — yes, his lips moved. 
The next instant the cliffs rang with a shout for aid, 
uttered with the full strength of Vivian’s powerful 
lungs, and echoing from rock to rock as if each had 
found a voice to shriek forth nature’s protest against 
the crimes of man. 

There was no time for a second cry — with a fierce 
oath Tomaso bounded forward like a tiger, the keen 
blade of his dagger flashing in the moonlight. 
Vivian’s eye and hand were steady. Springing back- 
ward at the instant the mountaineer rushed toward 
him, by a clever trick of fence he received a flesh 
wound in the arm, but struck the weapon from his 
opponent’s hand. Whirling through the airithurtled 
over the cliff; they could hear it strike rock after 
rock in its fall. 

Tomaso, with a cry of fury, rushed upon his antag- 
onist. Vivian, in his effort to escape the first thrust, 
had lost one-half of the precious strip of earth that 
separated him from eternity. The ledge was now 
barely three feet wide; the blood streaming from his 
arm and shoulder was fast stealing his strength; a 
hand to hand encounter with the powerful moun- 
taineer could have but one result. The next instant 
the two men, locked in each other’s arms, were 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


243 


engaged in a fierce struggle— a struggle for the prize 
of life. 

Vivian suddenly felt the brute nature awake within 
him as, panting violently, lie strained every muscleto 
keep his footing and prevent Tomaso from pushing 
him back to the verge of the precipice, now only fif- 
teen feet away. In vain, slowly but surely, inch by 
inch, the stalwart mountaineer forced him nearer 
and nearer. Only ten feet of rock remained between 
him and the edge of the gulf yawning between the 
cleft summit of the mountain peak. There was no 
mercy in the ej^es of his foe ; nay, they were already 
flashing with triumph. Slowly, but surely and 
steadily Vivian was still forced backward ; another 
foot of the precious vantage ground was lost, his 
strength was failing, his breath came in quick, 
labored gasps. Suddenly he fancied he saw figures 
emerging from the gateway and faintly uttered a 
hoarse shout for help. Was it answered? No— his 
ear caught nothing but the scream of a night bird 
and Tomaso’s triumphant, mocking laugh. Sum- 
moning all his strength he struggled desperately to 
regain the lost ground, but his foot slipped and he 
fell heavily back, clutching Tomaso in a death grip, 
resolved that he, too, should take the fatal plunge. 
But solid rock, not yielding air, received him. 
Stunned by the fall he relaxed his grasp, there was a 


244 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


confused murmnr in his ears like the sound of many 
voices, then — oblivion. 

* ******* 

The London season was at its height. Though the 
hour was somewhat early, carriage after carriage 
rolled rapidly to the door of one of the principal 
theaters where a new play was nightly drawing 
crowded audiences. Two gentlemen were scanning 
the rapidly filling boxes. 

“Has the new beauty come yet, L’Estrange? ’’ one 
asked his companion, dropping his opera-glasses 
after a prolonged survey of the house. 

“Which one do you mean? Mrs. — ” 

“No indeed,” interrupted the other, “not the Hon- 
orable Mrs. Grey. Why, what are you thinking of, 
man? I knew her as Violet Vane. No, the Countess 
of Estmere, about whom the gossips invent a new 
romance every day, each one more extravagant 
than the other.” 

“That — in addition to having one’s photo exposed 
for sale in every shop window — is one of the joys of 
being a professional beaut}’, and people have a wider 
field in this case than usual, because the lady hap- 
pens to be a foreigner, an Italian or Spaniard.” 

“Yes, the story most in vogue is that she was an 
Italian peasant girl, a bar maid in some little osteria, 
whose beauty bewitched the Earl of Estmere, 
and-” 


THE LAST OF THEIR LINE. 


245 


“ Highly probable! Wait till you see the lady. 
Our practieal Englishmen are so apt to commit 
romantic follies.” 

“Yes, but Estmere was always rather an eccentric 
fellow.” 

‘‘Possibly, but this story doubtless arose from the 
picture that made such a stir in the Exhibition last 
year. You saw it? ‘The Last of Their Line.’ He 
evidently took his beautiful wife as the model for the 
young girl’s face, and because he painted her in the 
costume of a Tuscan peasant, the wiseacres trumped 
up this absurd tale. Why, I’ll wager that her blood 
is bluer than his own. No peasant girl ever held her 
head so proudly or had such exquisite, slender hands ; 
race alwaA-^s tells there. No, she probably belonged 
to some of the impoverished noble familes of Italy 
who trace their ancestry to the Caesars.” 

“But,” persisted his companion, “Ernest Trevor 
told me yesterday he thought there might be some 
truth in the story, because, when passing through 
Italy to join the English embassy at Constantinople 
two years ago, he heard a rumor that Vivian Estmere 
had been nearly murdered by a jealous Italian peas- 
ant, the lover of a young girl whom Vivian had 
engaged for a model. The fellow first stabbed him 
and then tried to throw him over a cliff, but Estmere 
defended himself bravely, and in the struggle at last 
fell, dragging the man down with him. Both were 


246 


LORELEI AND OTHER STORIES. 


stunned and lay senseless side by side, when some vil- 
lagers on their way home from work found them.” 

L’Estrange laughed. 

“It won’t do for Estmere to paint any more 
pictures, if each is to furnish a peg on which to hang 
a personal romance. That tale is evidently founded 
on the one he exhibited this season, ‘Mortal Foes.’ 
Two men in the costume of Italian peasants strug- 
gling on the verge of a cliff; one has his back turned, 
the other, though handsome, wears an expression of 
such fiendish jealousy and rage that he looks scarcely 
human. In my opinion the painting is the best he 
has done yet. The effect, of the moonlight on the 
black rocks and yawning ravine is wonderful. Some- 
body has evidently made it the subject of your little 
romance. Ah ! well, it’s not surprising. The Countess 
of Estmere is a marvelously beautiful woman, and 
since little be^'^ond that fact is known, people have 
plenty of room in which to exercise the imagination. 
Wait till you see her, that’s all I ask. Ah, there 
she is! ” 

Two ladies accompanied by several gentlemen were 
just entering a box directly in front of them. One 
tall, fair, with a coronal of golden braids crowning 
her shapely head, and clusters of violets vying with 
the deep blue of her eyes, had been for three years, 
first as Violet Vane and later the Honorable Mrs. 
Bertram Grey, one of the acknowledged beauties of 


THE LAST OE THEIR LINE. 


247 


London, But the royal woman by her side — who 
was she? The glorious dark eyes, the masses of pur- 
ple black hair, the vivid crimson of lip and cheek 
relieving the soft olive complexion, the exquisite 
perfection of feature, made Mrs. Grey’s blonde 
beauty, type of English loveliness though it was, 
seem insipid and doll-like. 

L’Estrange, smiling significantly, turned to his 
companion. 

“That is the Countess of Estmere. Do you 
think she looks like a barmaid in a village osteria?” 

“By Jove, no! But had she been a beggar that 
face would have justified a man in playing King 
Cophetua. What a lucky fellow Estmere is! Along 
rent roll, rising fame as an artist and this peerless 
beauty for his wife! A barmaid! Look at the 
queenly poise of her head ! The gossips should invent 
stories with a shade of probability.” 

“Yet the countess does betray one token of plebeian 
origin,” observed L’Estrange, his grave tone belied 
by the laughing light in his eyes. 

“I see none.” 

“Why, she loves her husband and takes no trouble 
to conceal the fact. What could be more unfashion- 
able in a woman of rank, above all a ‘professional 
beauty?’” 


THE END. 


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